And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
After a successful launch last week from Wenchang, Chang’e-5 completed its outbound leg of its trip and has settled into lunar orbit. It’s about to get even more exciting: it appears that they’ll be going for a landing tomorrow, Sunday, November 29 at 20:30 UTC.
I keep going back to this video posted a few days ago by Peter Beck. Stunning footage with unreal audio of stage separation and second stage ignition.
SpaceX Crew-1 successfully launched and docked last week, kicking off a new era of the ISS. It’s a good time to zoom out and look at the ISS program overall, and what it means for the future of space development.
Jake and Anthony are joined by Eric Berger of Ars Technica to talk about the space policy fallout of the 2020 US election, Eric’s upcoming book, and Jake’s bad decisions.
Jake and Anthony are joined by Eric Berger of Ars Technica to talk about the space policy fallout of the 2020 US election, Eric’s upcoming book, and Jake’s bad decisions.
After a fantastic launch and deployment of 30 payloads, Electron’s first stage made it back through the atmosphere and successfully splashed down about 400 kilometers downrange. Peter Beck tweeted an image of the stage as they arrived with the recovery ship. Hell fucking yeah, Rocket Lab.
It’s easy to shrug off the marketing of this as their “first operational fuel depot” because they’re flying with a good bit of funding as a pathfinder mission for their hardware. But for something like a refueling interface that requires adoption by at least a good number of customers for Orbit Fab to find success, marketing is really important.
ESA posted an update after another round of testing the parachutes for the Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover, due to launch in 2022, and the results aren’t good: four tears in the first main chute and one in the second main chute.
Pretty embarrassing issue. Inverted hardware is a Russian-class error.
A major bummer, but not much of a surprise, honestly. NSF had dropped funding levels for Arecibo significantly in past years, and it had effectively been saved by a consortium led by the University of Central Florida.
A major bummer, but not much of a surprise, honestly. NSF had dropped funding levels for Arecibo significantly in past years, and it had effectively been saved by a consortium led by the University of Central Florida.
I had not heard of The Launch Company previously, but I probably should have. Their site lists Relativity, Firefly, and Virgin Orbit among their customers.
Chang’e-5 culminates with the samples returned to Earth sometime around December 16–17. I’ll be happily surprised if we get official coverage of the mission, but I wouldn’t count on it.
With a massive amount of news happening in the week following the election here in the US, it’s a good opportunity to give everyone a listen in on MECO Headlines. I run through all the stories of the week each and every weekend just like this for the supporters of MECO, so if you like what you hear, join the Headlines tier or higher!
Very special thanks to the 463 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off for the month of October. 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.
Big slip for Ariane 6, and 5% growth of development cost—bringing the total development cost to €3.8 billion. Disappointing yet unsurprising news. This news has dredged up another round of Ariane 6 takes that misunderstand the program entirely, though.
Jake and Anthony are joined by Caleb Henry, formerly of SpaceNews and now of Quilty Analytics. We talk about SpaceX’s new satellite contract, OneWeb’s new lease on life, Caleb’s new gig at Quilty, and what it’s like transitioning away from capital-J journalism.
Jake and Anthony are joined by Caleb Henry, formerly of SpaceNews and now of Quilty Analytics. We talk about SpaceX’s new satellite contract, OneWeb’s new lease on life, Caleb’s new gig at Quilty, and what it’s like transitioning away from capital-J journalism.
Last week, IAC 2020 brought a flurry of announcements and statements to digest. It’s a good time to check in on current and future lunar politics, with some statements by the ever-antagonistic Rogozin, seven countries signing onto the Artemis Accords, a handful of lunar development contracts announced, and the US election within sight.
The Space Development Agency has selected L3Harris and SpaceX to produce satellites for a missile warning constellation. I break down the details of the SDA project, the technical aspects, and what it means to see SpaceX enter the world of satellite manufacturing and sales.