I’m Anthony Colangelo.

It took a while for this to be announced officially. I talked with Mike Johnson, Chief Designer at NanoRacks, back in September about the airlock project (among a lot of other very interesting topics) and he said on the podcast that they were all set on the NASA side and were about to start finding a launch slot.

Thanks to my patrons for the month of January. If you’re getting some value out of what I do here and want to send a little value back to help support Main Engine Cut Off, head over to Patreon and donate as little as $1 a month—every little bit helps.

I’m not sure how well their strategy for Prometheus will work out, long-term, but I do admire the cautious-yet-curious attitude towards reusability rather than the fingers-in-ears attitude of Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel.

If you remove the historical link to the success of the Soviets in space, what does Russia have going for itself today? All of the bright spots one could point to are holdovers or descendants from a previous era.

A Florida budget proposal for the 2017-18 fiscal year includes a $17 million investment in Launch Complex 36, which Blue Origin will match.

I previously thought that SLS was more cancellation-prone, but I’m beginning to think Orion holds that title.

Aerojet Rocketdyne announced their plans to produce the AR1 in Huntsville. Though, as of right now, they don’t actually have anything to produce the engines for.

Marcia Smith of SpacePolicyOnline.com saw a draft of the 2017 NASA Transition Authorization Act, and it contains three very interesting changes.

CRS-10 has been set as the first SpaceX launch from 39A, with pad renovations taking longer than expected. EchoStar 23 will be launched after CRS-10.

SpaceX added over 40,000 square feet of space in Redmond, Washington, where their satellite internet operation is based.