Episode 24 - Jim-Adjacent
Jake and Anthony tell the tale of IAC 2019—meetups, making connections at the conference, trolling around the expo hall, and the much-anticipated-and-surprising meeting with JB.
And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
Jake and Anthony tell the tale of IAC 2019—meetups, making connections at the conference, trolling around the expo hall, and the much-anticipated-and-surprising meeting with JB.
Peter Beck, Founder, CEO, and CTO of Rocket Lab, joins me to talk about what they’ve been up to with Electron and Photon, as well as some of their new offerings like ground station support through KSAT and Photon missions to the Moon.
Artemis and international politics were on display on the first day of IAC 2019, followed by strange-yet-politically-minded partnerships on the second day.
That’s some serious speed.
I still think that as a launch services company, it’s a bad idea to put yourself in a situation where you’re beholden to someone else’s business for your core engines. But the confirmation of moving to a single-core, reusable first stage, along with a doubling of Beta’s previous payload is at least the best case scenario here.
I’ve been genuinely excited to see what Firefly can do in the launch market. And I still am excited to see Alpha, but for Beta, this is a major violation of the rocket equivalent of Alan Kay’s theorem: people who are really serious about launch services should make their own engines.
Big week coming up: I‘ll be heading down to DC for IAC 2019. It’s sure to be packed with announcements and interesting information, so keep your eyes peeled here on the blog, over on Twitter, and become a supporter to get access to any and all bonus content I produce throughout the week. I will likely be doing some ad hoc recording (maybe even interviews?), so it’s a great time to hop in and support!
I’m not completely sure what to make of this new set of filings yet. The optimistic end of the spectrum is SpaceX preparing for massive growth in Starlink services over the next decade.
A few bits of follow-up on Starship to GTO, the Bridenstine-Musk show at SpaceX HQ, and flying to polar orbits from Florida. Meetup alert! Sunday, October 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. Hang out with me, Jake, and a ton of amazing people of space the night before IAC 2019 kicks off. Details at events.offnominal.space.
The RFP was released back in August, and as we heard then, the program contains up to 20 missions that will be competed as they are ready. The selected launch providers are a nice mix of those who are flying today, those who are coming up on their first flight, and those who are still early on in their work.
This will be a great pathfinder flight profile for vehicles with sufficient margin to make use of it effectively.
The industry’s first commercial satellite servicing mission has launched, with much less fanfare than I would have liked to see.
Jake Robins, host of WeMartians and my co-host on Off-Nominal, joins me for Part 2 of our conversation about SpaceX’s 2019 Starship update. Part 1 can be found over on WeMartians.
Jake predictably apologizes for Canadian Thanksgiving, and we’ve got some IAC business to discuss.
Jake predictably apologizes for Canadian Thanksgiving, and we’ve got some IAC business to discuss.
Very special thanks to the 315 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of September. 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.
Their first flight is now slated for February 2021, and will feature a 3-meter hammerhead fairing, which can be seen on their site.
Sounds like the team didn’t predict such a long eclipse before launch. I wonder how much that’s tied to the fact that Juno is in a 53-day orbit rather than the intended 14-day orbit, due to the propulsion failure earlier in the mission. Nice flying by the Juno team.
I’ve got a special preview of MECO Headlines for the main feed this week, with news on Orion, NASA’s FY2020 budget, NEOCam’s legacy, Starship, and more.
Kurt Klaus, Chair of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group’s Commercial Advisory Board, joins me to talk about NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, and the wider potential for commercial flights to the Moon and beyond.