And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
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.
Jake and Anthony are joined by fellow space podcaster Brendan Bryne for a self-quarantine edition of the show. Jake developed a new bit for this grab bag episode with talk of Schrödinger’s Gateway, SpaceX’s DM-2, and a whole bunch more, including (obviously) COVID-19 and its impact on space. Also how Brendan’s cat almost ruined OSIRIS-REx.
Jake and Anthony are joined by fellow space podcaster Brendan Bryne for a self-quarantine edition of the show. Jake developed a new bit for this grab bag episode with talk of Schrödinger’s Gateway, SpaceX’s DM-2, and a whole bunch more, including (obviously) COVID-19 and its impact on space. Also how Brendan’s cat almost ruined OSIRIS-REx.
SpaceX recently signed two agreements: one with Axiom Space to fly a private mission up to the ISS, and one with Space Adventures for a free-flying tourist flight up to 1,000 kilometers. I discuss these two missions and why agreements like this are key to SpaceX’s long-term strategy.
Hot on the heels of MEV-1 successfully docking with its first target, the good news continues for Northrop Grumman’s Space Logistics business.
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.
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.
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.
Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, joins me to talk all about SpaceX’s Starship, its history thus far, it’s nearly-impossible-to-keep-up-with development in the open, and what we may see in the coming months. We make some timeline predictions, talk about the predicament of Boca Chica, and both randomly stumble into completely unsupported theories.
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.
Northrop Grumman completed the first docking of a Mission Extension Vehicle with its target, and the photos are wonderful.
This continues the same story I’ve been harping on with Starliner’s issues since December: Boeing is making mistakes that even to non-technical audiences sound downright stupid.
Long-time head of human spaceflight at NASA, Bill Gerstenmaier, has joined SpaceX as a consultant, but everyone is excited for the wrong reasons. And SpaceX missed a booster landing on their most recent Starlink launch, which prompted a new round of debates over whether booster recovery is part of mission success or not.
Mike Suffredini, President and CEO of Axiom, joins me to talk about their recent announcement: Axiom has been selected by NASA for access to an ISS port. They will build out Axiom Station as an expansion of the ISS, and eventually operate it as a free-flying space station. Before Axiom, Mike was NASA’s ISS Program Manager for a decade.
I’m hopeful—both personally and for his sake—that Gerst is heading to SpaceX not to be a political face for the organization or to schmooze inside the right DC circles, but rather to take things back to his roots as an engineer.
Jake and Anthony are joined by Laura Forczyk to talk about all the drama, from the NASA Authorization bill making its way through the House, the latest in Starliner anomalies, and Laura’s new book, Rise of the Space Age Millennials.
Jake and Anthony are joined by Laura Forczyk to talk about all the drama, from the NASA Authorization bill making its way through the House, the latest in Starliner anomalies, and Laura’s new book, Rise of the Space Age Millennials.
Astra is finally making themselves known publicly by way of an Ashlee Vance feature for Bloomberg.
Nice win for SpaceX, but the most interesting part is that PACE is going to sun-synchronous orbit from Cape Canaveral rather than Vandenberg. SpaceX will be trying out this long-unused launch profile next month for the launch of SAOCOM-1B.
Very special thanks to the 361 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of January. 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.