| BROADCAST DATE |
SUBJECT | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|
| January 3 | Mars Polar Lander | The story of the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander, which was launched 25 years ago today. (Inserts courtesy JPL)
Listen or download (23 min 16 s - 22.3 MB) |
| January 3 | Moon Month | This month will see the attempted landing of Japan's SLIM near Shioli Crater, and the launch of Astrobotic's Peregrine 1 with NASA and other payloads. Also a look-back 65 years to 1959 January 2 and the launch of Luna 1, intended as an impactor, but which missed the Moon and entered into heliocentric orbit, becoming the first artificial 'planet'. (Inserts courtesy NASA)
Listen or download (16 min 28 s - 15.8 MB) |
| January 10 | Clint Therakam Thermal Engineer Melbourne Space Laboratory Parkville | The SpIRIT satellite, its experiements, and his role in the project. Also his work on the design of the Australian Roo-ver lunar rover. Related music. Listen or download full feature (51 min 14 s - 49.2 MB) Listen or download interview only (30 min 52 s - 29.6 MB) |
| January 10 | Artemis and Peregrine 1 | Announcement that the Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 lunar missions will be delayed; and news of the failure of the Peregrine 1 lunar lander after a successful launch on the maiden flight of the Vulcan Centaur rocket. (Inserts courtesy NASA)
Listen or download (4 min 59 s - 4.8 MB) |
| January 17 | Peregrine 1 | As told by the official announcements of Astrobotic, the sad tale of the Peregrine 1, built as a lunar lander but doomed to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. Listen or download (22 min 29 s - 21.6 MB) |
| January 17 | Angelo Di Grazia Councillor Space Association of Australia | The delays to the Artemis missions; the problems identified by the Artemis 1 flight; the challenges for the planned Artemis 3 lunar landing mission; the Starship rocket and lunar lander. (Inserts courtesy NASA, SpaceX) Listen or download (32 min 48 s - 31.5 MB) |
| January 24 | Angelo Di Grazia Councillor Space Association of Australia | The Starship rocket and lunar lander; Artemis 3, 4 and 5; lunar cargo. (Inserts courtesy NASA, SpaceX) Listen or download (56 min 9 s - 53.9 MB) |
| January 31 | The Demise of Ingenuity | Marking the end of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter: comments by Bill Nelson (NASA Administrator); media teleconference briefing and Q&A; songs and poetry. (Inserts courtesy NASA) Listen or download (43 min 12 s - 41.5 MB) |
| January 31 | SLIM awake again | After taking a tumble, SLIM is awake again. A full report from JAXA on what happened to SLIM. Listen or download (8 min 33 s - 8.2 MB) |
| February 7 | Celestis Enterprise and Tranquility Flights | Human remains were aboard the Centaur stage of the Vulcan rocket that launched the ill-fated Peregrine 1 mission, which also had a Celestis payload. Listen or download (8 min 38 s - 8.3 MB) |
| February 7 | XPoSat | India's X-ray Polarimeter Satellite was launched on New Years day. (Inserts courtesy ISRO) Listen or download (3 min 17 s - 3.2 MB) |
| February 7 | Peregrine 1 Mission summary | John Thornton (CEO, Astrobotic, Pitsburg) explains what happened to the Peregrine 1 spacecraft. (Courtesy Astrobotic) |
| February 7 | Joe Kerwin Skylab 2 Doctor-Astronaut | The first of two programmes to mark the 50th anniversary of the splashdown of the 84 day Skylab 4 mission. (Interview by Peter Aylward) Listen or download (25 min 56 s - 24.9 MB) |
| February 14 | Joe Kerwin Skylab 2 Doctor-Astronaut | The second of two programmes to mark the 50th anniversary of the splashdown of the 84 day Skylab 4 mission. (Interview by Peter Aylward) Listen or download (56 min 27 s - 54.2 MB) |
| February 21 | Odysseus On It Way To The Moon | The plan for Intuitive Machine's Odysseus mission to Malapert A near the lunar South Pole; the launch and comissioning of the lunar lander; and a reminder that the lunar South Pole is at the TOP of the Moon, as seen from Melbourne. (Inserts courtesy IM, NASA) Listen or download (21 min 3 s - 20.2 MB) |
| February 21 | Planet Earth 59 | Season Five of our Planet Earth series begins with a detailed explanation of the just launched PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud Ocean Ecosystem) satellite; the PACE Fanfare; how the 2019-20 Australian bushfires caused a bloom of plankton in the Pacific Ocean; and the possible effect of megaconstellations of Internet satellites on the Earth's magnetic field. (Inserts courtesy NASA, GSFC) Listen or download (32 min 9 s - 30.9 MB) |
| February 28 | Odysseus On The Moon | Intuitive Machine's Odysseus mission to Malapert A near the lunar South Pole; the frantic efforts to replace Intuitive's laser landing system with NASA's Navigation Doppler Lidar; the landing accident; incorrect reports; EagleCam; fuel tank guage; and future prospects. (Inserts courtesy IM, NASA) Listen or download (56 min 15 s - 54.0 MB) |
| March 6 | Optimus | The Australian company Space Machine's satellite Optimus was launched yesterday on the SpaceX Transporter 10 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base. (Inserts courtesy SpaxeX) Listen or download (4 min 53 s - 4.7 MB) |
| March 6 | Odysseus Ends Mission | Details of Odysseus's semi-hard landing on the higher than planned site near Malapert A; the rush to rewrite and upload control software; the role of CSIRO's Parkes Radio Astronomy Telescope in receiving data from Odysseus; the problem of multipath radio signals from the lunar south polar region; the NASA experiments - plan and achievement; mission 'firsts'; SLIM revived after lunar night; and the end of the IM-1 mission.(Inserts courtesy JSC) Listen or download (39 min 27 s - 37.9 MB) |
| March 6 | Vale Richard Truly | Noting the death of former astronaut and NASA Administrator Richard Truly with the "Pigs In Space" skit played for him on STS 2. Listen or download (10 min 55 s - 10.5 MB) |
| March 13 | Professor Peter Quinn Director International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research Perth | The scale of the Universe; the Square Kilometre Array and its location; components in Western Australia and South Africa; funding. (Recorded at Space Association of Australia) Listen or download (10 min 49 s - 10.4 MB) |
| March 13 | China : Towards the Moon | China's intention to establish a Lunar Research Station on the Moon, and the concerns this has engendered in Australia and the United States. Comments by Bill Nelson (Administrator, NASA), Angelo Di Grazia (Councillor, Space Association of Australia), Mike Griffin (former NASA Administrator), Malcolm Davis (Senior Policy Analyst, Australian Strategic Policy Institute), Destination Moon character 'General Thayer', and Vladimir Putin (President, Russian Federation). Also report that Chinese aerospace agencies have outlined a plan to install Skynet-type sureveillance cameras at the moonbase, and reports on the new commercial launch vehicles and the now established Long March 7 rocket. (Inserts courtesy SAA, NASA, TCN and CGTN) Listen or download (37 min 56 s - 36.4 MB) |
| March 20 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 1 | New Space In Australia (Tim Parsons, Co founder, X-Lab); Technology Safeguards Agreement to protect United States' rocket technology, but not everyone is happy; Gilmour awarded spaceport licence; Australian technology on the Optimus satellite; and the HEO (High Earth Orbit) Robotics company's plans to take images of satellites from Optimus and other satellites. Listen or download full programme (55 min 41 s - 53.5 MB) Listen or download Parsons talk only - Recorded at Space Association of Australia, Elsternwick (14 min 28 s - 13.9 MB) |
| Not broadcast | Federal Space Grants 2024 | Details of twelve funding grants awarded by the Australian Space Agency. Listen or download (14 min 22 s - 13.8 MB) |
| Not broadcast | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 2 | A detailed examination of the LiDAV technology to be supplied by the Sydney-based company Advanced Navigation to the Houston company Intuitive Machines for its Nova-C lunar lander. Includes an explanation of lasers and laser ranging. (Based in information provided by Advanced Navigation) Listen or download (56 min 13 s - 54.0 MB) |
| March 27 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 3 Planet Earth 60 | A dual topic feature. Funding grants; "The Democratisation Of Space" (Maria Xygkaki, Senior Business Developer, Saber Astronautics, Adelaide); Spiral Blue and the Optimus satellite (Mei He, Business Development Intern, Spiral Blue); CyanoSat on Skykraft. (Xygkaki and He recorded Space Association of Australia, South Melbourne) Listen or download (36 min 38 s - 34.5 MB) Listen or download Xygkaki only (8 min 42 s - 34.5 MB) Listen or download He only(5 min 32 s - 5.3 MB) |
| March 27 | Tom Stafford | Noting the death at age 93 of former astronaut Tom Stafford with an explanation of how he came to be called "The Mayor of Pad 19." (Inserts courtesy VOA) Listen or download (19 min 38 s - 18.9 MB) |
| April 3 | Space Potpourri | Dragonfly Science to be done on Titan; New Horizons' journey to Pluto, and the findings about Pluto and its moons (Hal Weaver, Project Scientist); Parker Solar Probe enters the Sun's corona; the early Universe's ages; the changing rotatoion period of asteroid 3200 Phaethon (Sean Marshall, Arecibo Observatory); women astronomers (Fred Watson, AAT); the WISE astronomy satellite; history of astronaut wake-up music; and Parker Solar Probe detects dust in the inner Solar System (Jamey Szalay, Research Scientist, Princeton University.) (Inserts courtesy GSFC, JHU, JPL, NPR) |
| April 10 | Rosetta Part One | Marking the 20th anniversary of the start of the Rosetta and Philae missions to comet 67P, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in vox-pops, poetry and music. (Inserts courtesy ESA) Listen or download (53 min 18 s - 51.2 MB) |
| April 17 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 4 | Fleet Space Technologies of Adelaide's Centauri 6 satellite orbited on April 8 at 9:16 a.m. AEST; Centauri 4 modified to allow "push-to-talk" messages by the Australian Defence Force; Fleet's Exosphere geodes used in mineral exploration; Exosphere technology to be incorporated into a sensor called "Spider" to be placed onto the lunar surface by the Blue Ghost 2 lander to search for buried water ice; a description of the LuSEE experiment to be placed on the lunar farside to do radio cosmology; has Optimus been an example of the common fate of small satellite missions - 'dead on arrival'?; Dandelions had hoped to test composite material, including hemp, on the Optimus; the role of the Sydney based Advanced Navigation company on the Optimus satellite; Gilmour Space preparing to launch the first Eris satellite launch vehicle from Queensland; Eris, a dwarf planet, not a moon. Listen or download (53 min 18 s - 51.2 MB) |
| April 24 | Rosetta Part Two | Marking the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the Rosetta and Philae missions at comet 67P, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in vox-pops, poetry and music. Also a report on how the comet was formed. (Inserts courtesy ESA) Listen or download (43 min 16 s - 41.5 MB) |
| April 24 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 5 | Katherine Bennell-Pegg graduates astronaut training at the European Astronaut Centre to become the first Australian-flagged astronaut; fate of Optimus satellite still unclear; Eris launch delayed for lack of a launch permit. (Insert courtesy CH10) Listen or download (11 min 24 s - 10.9 MB) |
| May 1 | CST 100 Starliner and Other Matters | The crew exchange on the China Space Station; Chang'e 6 due for launch; interviews with the crew of the CST 100 Starliner Crew Flight Test (Inserts courtesy JSC). Listen or download (28 min 58 s - 27.8 MB) |
| May 1 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 6 | SR75 parafin rocket due for launch at Koonibba; Eris awaits launch license; Valiant Space's VS-1 thruster on Optimus satellite; Andrew Uscinski (CEO, Founder, Valiant Space, Brisbane) on his company's lunar ambitions. (Inserts courtesy Ch7, ABC).(Recorded Space Association of Australia, South Melbourne) Listen or download (23 min 58 s - 23.0 MB) |
| May 8 | CST 100 Starliner | The standdown of the launch attempt due to a Centaur valve problem; a profile of Sunita Williams; how the CST 100 will land. Listen or download (12 min 50 s - 12.3 MB) |
| May 8 | Chang'e 6 | Descriptions of the Chang'e 6 spacecraft, including the foreign instruments and subsatellite; launch. (Inserts courtesy CGTN) Listen or download (22 min 30 s - 21.6 MB) |
| May 8 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 7 | The launch of HyImpulse's SR75 paraffin rocket from Koonibba; Alan Shepard and "Light This Candle"; and funding for Australian-Indian space projects. (Inserts courtesy SDU) Listen or download (21 min 33 s - 20.7 MB) |
| May 15 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 8 | The 2024 Federal Budget; LandsatNext; statements about the funding of Australian-Indian space projects; the Valiant Space experiment on the Optimus and its supply chain grant; the ANT61BRAIN aboard Optimus; and the CSIRO flexible solar cells on Optimus. Listen or download (37 min 31 s - 35.9 MB) |
| May 15 | Chang'e 6 | A progress report on the Chang'e 6 lunar farside sampling mission, and of the Pakistani iCube-Qamar lunar orbiter. Chang'e poem. Listen or download (4 min 57 s - 4.8 MB) |
| May 15 | Planetary Report | The findings of the Lucy spacecraft at asteroid binary Dinkinesh / Selam; MAVEN's findings when the solar wind disappeared at Mars. (Inserts courtesy GSFC) |
| May 15 | Planet Earth 61 | Preparations to launch two Prefire (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far InfraRed Experiment) from New Zealand. N.B. LandsatNext was covered in the "Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 8" above. Listen or download (1 min 31 s - 1.5 MB) |
| May 22 | Planet Earth 62 | The Prefire satellites, and the delay in launching the first of them; the GRACE-Continuity and their predecessors findings, GRACE and GRACE-Follow-on; the end of the AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) mission, and a poem and song about noctilucent clouds; satellite observations of the Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha'apai eruption and a sonification of Aeolus data; and plans for the Libera satellite to succeed the CERES instrument on the Terra satellite, which is nearing the end of its life. Listen or download (50 min 8 s - 48.1 MB) |
| May 29 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 9 | Melbourne University's SpIRIT satellite survives global solar storm, returns picture from space; astronaut graduation ceremony for Katherine Bennell-Pegg; Gilmour Space still awaiting launch permit for its Eris satellite launch vehicle. (Inserts courtesy ESA) Listen or download (14 min 17 s - 13.7 MB) |
| May 29 | Planet 9 | New evidence suggesting that a planet orbits in trans-Neptunian space. |
| May 29 | eROSITA | Findings by the eROSITA instrument on the Russian Spectrum Roentgen Gamma satellite of a very hot, ionized gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy; also resolves one of the cosmological tensions regarding the clumpiness of the Universe. |
| May 29 | Planet Earth 63 | Launch of PREFIRE 1 and EarthCARE. (Inserts courtesy Rocket Lab and ESA) Listen or download (33 min 7 s - 31.8 MB) |
| June 5 | Planet Earth 64 | Launch of PREFIRE 2; Earth science missions launched by Rocket Lab; Esper's plans to recover from the loss of its first "Over The Rainbow" mission aboard the failed Optimus satellite. (Inserts courtesy RL, RNZ) Listen or download (26 min 46 s - 25.7 MB) |
| June 5 | Chang'e 6 and Chang'e 7 | The landing of Chang'e 6 on the farside of the Moon, deployment of a small rover, collection of regolith, and liftoff to lunar orbit; the international instruments to be carried in 2026 by the Chang'e 7 mission to the lunar south pole. (Inserts courtesy CGTN) Listen or download (22 min 1 s - 21.2 MB) |
| June 5 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 10 | Esper's plans to recover from the loss of its first "Over The Rainbow" mission aboard the failed Optimus satellite; 60th anniversary the launch of the first Blue Streak from Woomera on the Europa 1 F-1 test flight. (Inserts courtesy SL, ESAL) Listen or download (11 min 57 s - 11.5 MB) |
| June 12 | Bill Anders | The death of Apollo 8 astronaut and aviator Bill Anders in an aeroplane accident. (Insert courtesy OHP) Listen or download (12 min 47 s - 12.3 MB) |
| June 12 | Starship IFT 4 | The fourth Integrated Flight Test of the Starship and a false report about the mission. Listen or download (11 min 11 s - 10.7 MB) |
| June 12 | Starliner Crew Flight Test | The launch of the Starliner CST 100 CFT and the problems that delayed docking. (Inserts courtesy NASA) Listen or download (16 min 32 s - 15.9 MB) |
| June 12 | Chang'e 6 | The Chang'e 6 is in lunar orbit with samples from the lunar farside. (Inserts courtesy CGTN) Listen or download (3 min 15 s - 3.1 MB) |
| June 12 | Hubble Space Telescope | The Hubble Space Telescope to use only one gyroscope for future operations. Also, poem and song. (Inserts courtesy NASA) Listen or download (11 min 29 s - 11.0 MB) |
| June 19 | Ed Stone and Voyager - Part One | Noting the death of Ed Stone, and a recounting of the Voyager project in song and poetry. Listen or download (50 min 55 s - 48.9 MB) |
| June 26 | Ed Stone and Voyager - Part Two | Noting the death of Ed Stone, and a recounting of the Voyager project in poetry and song. Listen or download (22 min 39 s - 21.8 MB) |
| June 26 | Sir Peter Beck and Rocket Lab | The anouncement that Rocket Lab's Peter Beck had been awarded a knighthood; the Archimedes engine for the Neutron rocket has begun testing. (Inserts courtesy TV3, RocketLab) Listen or download (6 min 9 s - 5.9 MB) |
| June 26 | ACRUX 2 | Marking the fifth anniversary of the launch of Melbourne University's ACRUX 1, James Condos and Marshall Poon (Co-leads, Attitude Determination and Control, Melbourne Space Program) describe attitude pointing using magentic torquing and reaction wheels on the ACRUX 2 satellite being built at the University. (Recorded Melbourne University) Listen or download (5 min 39 s - 5.4 MB) |
| June 26 | Starliner CFT | The crew of the ISS have spacesuit problems as the test pilot crew of the CST 100 Starliner trouble shoot thruster and helium leak issues that have delayed the return from this test flight. (Inserts courtesy JSC) Listen or download (15 min 50 s - 15.2 MB) |
| July 3 | Australian Space Industry 2024 - Part 11 | The South Australian Space Services Mission, Kanyini, ready for launch this month. (Inserts courtesy Australian Space Industry Technology Infrastructure and Investment, Ch9) Listen or download (51 min 0 s - 48.9 MB) |
| July 10 | Ariane 6 | The inaugural flight of the Ariane 6 launch vehicle was made this morning. Listen or download (7 min 42 s - 7.4 MB) |
| July 10 | Rise and Fall of Skylab | On the 45th anniversary of the fall of Skylab, doctor-astronaut Joe Kerwin describes how he and his Skylab 2 crewmates saved the damaged space station. Included contemparary commentary and song. (Interviewer Peter Aylward) Listen or download (48 min 34 s - 46.6 MB) |
| July 17 | Joe Engle | To mark the death last week of Joe Engle, a recounting of his experiences flying the X-15 and the Space Shuttle. Listen or download (14 min 48 s - 14.2 MB) |
| July 17 | Searching For Skylab | Remembering the 45th anniversary of the crash of Skylab near Esperance, Skylab 2 astronaut Joe Kerwin and Australian film maker Dwight Steven-Bonieci discuss Skylab and the film Searching For Skylab. Kerwin discusses his time in Australia as NASA representative. (Interviewer Peter Aylward) Listen or download (33 min 47 s - 34.4 MB) |
| July 24 | Apollo 11 | Celebrating the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in song and poetry. Listen or download (53 min 27 s - 51.3 MB) |
