From Dragon to Cygnus to an Android Phone
Cool read on a very cool development.
I’m Not Just Picking on Virgin Orbit
If it wasn’t clear in my post yesterday, I’m annoyed at California’s overly-broad definition of aerospace manufacturers that allows Virgin Orbit to keep its facilities open in any capacity.
Virgin Orbit, Who Has Been Saying Their First Launch is This Year for Nearly Three Years, Deemed an Essential Service
With all due respect to anyone reading this who works at Virgin Orbit, this is quite frankly bullshit. I’m fine with designating high-visibility, time-sensitive launch campaigns like Mars 2020 (Perseverance), Commercial Crew, or even AEHF-6 as essential services. But a company still in the development and testing phase of a launch vehicle that has been delayed for several years now with the only government flight being a Space Test Program launch?
First Long March 7A Fails, with Some Evidence Pointing to Second Stage Failure
Andrew Jones, far and away my favorite source (and podcast guest!) for Chinese space news, has a great rundown on SpaceNews on Long March 7A and the impacts its failure could have.
DARPA Selects Northrop Grumman for RSGS
Hot on the heels of MEV-1 successfully docking with its first target, the good news continues for Northrop Grumman’s Space Logistics business.
ESA Data Puts 2019 Amazon Fires In Context, and It’s Good News
Pleasantly surprising data from ESA. Turns out 2018 was a good year, and 2019 was pretty close to the norm over the last two decades. Context helps.
NASA Awards Psyche Launch to SpaceX, Who Now Has Its First Mars Launch on the Books
At $117 million, Falcon Heavy is a hell of a deal for NASA. It’s no surprise, then, that SpaceX has been winning a lot of NASA science missions lately. Just within the last year, they’ve been selected to launch DART, PACE, IXPE, and now Psyche.
Huge Thanks to February Supporters!
Very special thanks to the 385 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of February. MECO is entirely listener- and reader-supported, so your support keeps this blog and podcast going, growing, and improving, and most importantly, it keeps it independent.
First Look at Falcon 9 and Heavy Updates for NSSL
An FAA environmental assessment shed some light on changes that would come to SpaceX’s Falcon family if and when they’re selected as a Phase 2 launch provider: the new service tower that would be built at Pad 39A to support vertical integration of payloads, and the longer fairing that would be required for certain payloads.
MEV-1 Docks with Intelsat 901
Northrop Grumman completed the first docking of a Mission Extension Vehicle with its target, and the photos are wonderful.