And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
The telling sign here will be whether DARPA pursues a continuation of RSGS with Northrop Grumman, who lost out on the original round of agreements. Northrop Grumman may feel confident enough in their Mission Extension Vehicles and Pods that they don’t need the additional complexity of RSGS, or they may feel like the robotic arm would be a valuable boost to their work.
Hell of a backlog for New Glenn. This brings it into double digits.
A $200–300 user terminal like this is the critical technology piece for OneWeb, SpaceX’s Starlink, and the like. Their business case would be near a complete collapse without it.
Originally, they planned to build an engine test and acceptance stand as part of their Cape Canaveral launch site—at the old Launch Complex 11. I wonder if getting space at Marshall would change that plan. I have to assume so.
In the last few years, we’ve seen a handful of small satellite production lines open up. Those production lines have mostly been for internal programs, but at least a few have said they want to sell buses, as well. This is a big step in that direction for Airbus and OneWeb.
NASA announced a crew change for Starliner’s Crew Flight Test: Boe is out, and Fincke is in.
I’ll say this about Rocket Lab’s upcoming stretch of launches for 2019: they have a lot more United States Department of Defense launches then you’d expect. Should be a fun year.
Jake and Anthony talk about New Horizons’ recent flyby, Chang’e 4, and take on a handful of questions from listeners.
Jake and Anthony talk about New Horizons’ recent flyby, Chang’e 4, and take on a handful of questions from listeners.
Jake and Anthony talk about New Horizons’ recent flyby, Chang’e 4, and take on a handful of questions from listeners.
I’ve had a lot of people ask how I stay up on space news, so figured it might be worth sharing this.
I wanted to spend some time breaking down a few news items from last week that may be leading indicators of trends for 2019: layoffs at Stratolaunch, Tethers Unlimited, and SpaceX, and Relativity signed a lease for Launch Complex 16 at Cape Canaveral.
Good to see them secure a launch site, but they’re still on the hunt for a polar-capaable site. Maybe SLC-3W at Vandenberg?
Pacific Dataport, an Alaskan company looking to provide broadband access to the entire state, is Astranis’ first customer.
Caleb Henry, for SpaceNews, on the past few months at Maxar, including the departure of their CEO, who was replaced by DigitalGlobe’s president.
Chris Gebhardt of NASASpaceflight joins me to talk all things SpaceX: Starship and its upcoming hopper tests, DM-1 and the government shutdown, and more.
Rough end to last week for space.
Such a bummer to lose a satellite after just two years in space, especially one that generated $85 million in revenue last year.
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Catching up on some reading, and there’s an interesting little tidbit on Dream Chaser’s launch costs in a SpaceNews article by Jeff Foust.