Rocket Lab Photon
There’s a lot of interesting flexibility here with Rocket Lab’s new kick stage-derived satellite bus.
SpaceX Wins DART Launch, Drops Lucy Protest
A solid $30 million under their previous NASA science mission contracts, but DART is only 500 kilograms, so will likely be sharing its ride.
Episode T+118: Rapid Agile Launch Initiative
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.
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Rapid Agile Launch Initiative
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.
Relativity Signs Telesat, Eyes Polar Launch Site
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.
Dodgy Starliner Delays
Starliner’s uncrewed test is now NET August, and Chris Gebhardt has a pretty brutal piece that’s definitely worth reading on it.
India Attempted ASAT Test in February
What’s most interesting here is the implication that the US government knew about India’s ASAT testing ahead of time. Additionally, there has been little-to-no response from US officials, aside from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Sierra Nevada Inflates Their Protoype Habitat
It’s a big one. I continue to be excited about someone other than Bigelow working on inflatables/expandables.
Episode T+117: Q&A
This month we talk EM-1, Moon by 2024, the commercialization of LEO, and more.
New Skylab
One of the things I’m always interested to hear more about is Blue Origin’s long-term plans for in-space architecture. Not the general vision of the future—the actual hardware that makes it possible.
First Vulcan Flight Hardware
From what I’ve heard, Vulcan is making really good progress, and is one of the odds-on favorites for selection for NSSL Phase 2. That said, we’re still waiting for BE-4 to get to full power.
Episode T+116: On the Moon by 2024
The National Space Council met this week and Vice President Pence announced the administration’s intentions to see humans land on the moon by 2024. I break down my thoughts and observations coming out of the meeting.
OneWeb Raises Another $1.25 Billion
Seems like one of those rounds of funding that was contingent on getting the first satellites up, but good to see the money still flowing into OneWeb. And boy, will they need it.
Episode T+115: Caleb Henry
Caleb Henry of SpaceNews joins me live in studio to talk about his trip to Kourou for the first OneWeb launch, more affordable antennas, the current spectrum wars, and more from the world of satellites.
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Behind Today’s Contentious FCC Spectrum Auction
Fantastic article by Debra Werner, for SpaceNews, that explains the furor over today’s FCC spectrum auction.
Space Development Agency Officially Established
The Space Development Agency is up and running, and we have some details on what its first task will be. And this is all a really good example of why I’m supportive of Space Force as a wholly separate branch.
Episode T+114: EM-1 Hot Drama with Eric Berger
Eric Berger of Ars Technica joins me to talk about the latest in SLS Hot Drama: the 2020 budget request and a Bridenstine appearance in the Senate that might just go down in history. This week, NASA has proposed flying the three prime missions of SLS on commercial vehicles, setting the stage for an interesting few months of politics and engineering, and introducing some serious questions about the future of SLS.
NASA’s SLS Pushback Continues
Within the span of 3 days, NASA has officially, publicly stated that they want all previously-SLS-only flights flown on commercial vehicles. This is a massive shift, and as I said yesterday, one that will probably be rejected by Congress.
NASA 2020 Budget Request
In the current era, White House budget requests often don’t matter much in the outcome of NASA’s budget, but they do speak volumes about the administration’s intentions.