I’m Anthony Colangelo.

Dr. Marco Langbroek wrote an intriguing post about the upcoming NROL-71 payload.

Sounds like they are delaying 300 satellites, not specifically downsizing the entire constellation.

The one mystery they’re still working to solve: it appears as if Chang’e 4 is 90° out of the expected plane.

I find Jonathan McDowell’s paper convincing, and I’ve always loved the X-15, so in the spirit of consistency, yes, SpaceShipTwo reached space today on its flight to 82.7 kilometers.

Scott Tilley leaves us with a few theories towards the end of the post, but this doesn’t seem like a good sign.

An update on this strange saga: Boeing backed out due to Global IP being behind on their payments. That’s almost certainly a half-truth at best, and it’s not a good look to say something to the effect of “We would have continued to take their money if they had any.”

Very special thanks to the 232 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of November. 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.

This story is so crazy that it nearly sounds like an entrapment scheme—not that something like that has happened before.

The 2020/2021 New Launch Vehicle sales cycle continues—New Glenn, Ariane 6, and now H3 all have commercial customers. Still waiting on those first Vulcan and Omega contracts.

They are in need of a good example of their flight safety procedures, and while the event will surely be used by some to criticize SpaceX and their operations, anyone looking to give an honest assessment of the situation will come away impressed with the flight operations yesterday.

Well, that was quick.

“We stopped giving dates! Here’s a date!”

This award isn’t a ton of money—especially for Aerojet Rocketdyne—but it’s good to see continued development on this front.

InSight landed with incredible accuracy and just two degrees of tilt, and both MarCO-A and -B relayed all telemetry back to Earth in real time.