And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
Very special thanks to the 283 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of April. 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.
While most everyone has been trying to figure out what the deal is with Marzipan, I decided to learn (a very tiny amount of) AppKit and built my first Mac app.
It’s called Downlink, and it brings real-time satellite imagery of Earth right to your desktop. You can get it today—for free!—on the Mac App Store.
My worlds collide: I built a Mac app using near real-time imagery from GOES-East, GOES-West, and Himawari-8. It’s called Downlink and you can get it today (free!) on the Mac App Store.
Real-time satellite imagery on your desktop.
Watch sunlight and weather patterns move across Earth throughout the day, and bask in the glory of our blue marble in real time.
Every 20 minutes (or every hour, you pick), Downlink updates your desktop background with the newest images of Earth.
Choose from 8 different views of Earth, including stunning full disk images from 3 different geostationary satellites.
Letting the $8 billion number circulate for a few days makes asking for $4 billion seem more sane than it would have otherwise.
With complete integrated landers being back in the realm of possibility, anything could happen. From SpaceX’s Starship, to a full Blue Moon lander.
Titan is the second coolest planet in the system. Go Team Dragonfly.
Dr. John Charles spent nearly 33 years at NASA—most recently as Chief Scientist of the Human Research Program—working on human spaceflight through Shuttle, Mir, ISS, and beyond. He lead missions such as STS-95 (John Glenn’s Shuttle flight), STS-107, and the Twins Study with Scott and Mark Kelly. He retired from NASA in February 2018 and is now the Scientist in Resident at Space Center Houston. We talk about his career, the human spaceflight issues he worked and solved in his time at NASA, and the things that need to be solved for the exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Kate Howells of the Planetary Society joins Jake and Anthony to talk all things Canadian space policy.
Kate Howells of the Planetary Society joins Jake and Anthony to talk all things Canadian space policy.
Kate Howells of the Planetary Society joins Jake and Anthony to talk all things Canadian space policy.
I joined Andrew Heaton on his show, Something’s Off with Andrew Heaton, to talk about all things Space Force—where things stand, where they’re headed, what needs to be solved, and of course, uniforms.
Is a U.S. Space Force an inevitable step to protecting satellites and commercial space activities, or just an expensive exercise in shuffling Pentagon bureaucracies? Military and aerospace expert Anthony Colangelo joins Heaton to sort things out.
I understand why Vector and Astra are in, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why Virgin Orbit is interested.
There’s a lot of interesting flexibility here with Rocket Lab’s new kick stage-derived satellite bus.
A solid $30 million under their previous NASA science mission contracts, but DART is only 500 kilograms, so will likely be sharing its ride.
Last week, the US Air Force announced and expounded on the Rapid Agile Launch Initiative. Along with the new initiative, the new era of small launch is finally here, so it’s worth discussing a bit.
Very special thanks to the 271 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of March. 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.
I was on a call earlier this week with US Air Force officials talking about the Rapid Agile Launch Initiative (RALI), which is the program handling the acquisition of new small launch vehicles.
Good to hear them signing customers, but I’m ready for this era of extreme secrecy of space projects to be over. As far as the launch site is concerned, my bet is on SLC-3W.