Thanks to September Patrons
Very special thanks to the 222 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of August. Your support keeps this blog and podcast going, and most importantly, it keeps it independent.
And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
Very special thanks to the 222 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of August. Your support keeps this blog and podcast going, and most importantly, it keeps it independent.
Looks like all the rumblings about Moon Express folding entirely weren’t the whole story. But I do want to point out that they haven’t even started building the first flight vehicle.
This month, I take on questions about BE-4 and Vulcan, small launch, BFR, and human spaceflight.
I don’t really understand the decision to establish in Luxembourg. It makes sense for organizations focused on space resources, since Luxembourg has taken such a strong stance for private space property rights. But I can’t quite make sense of it for CubeRover.
It’s encouraging that they chose to develop a hydrolox engine for their architecture, and 200,000 pounds-force puts it right about what a Merlin 1D is pushing these days.
ULA says its on track for a mid-2020 flight of the BE-4-powered Vulcan. I was expecting to hear a bit of a delay with this announcement, because past statements sounded a lot like, “This is what we said previously so we’re going to say the same thing again until we update the schedule when we make the selection.”
HTV-7 arrived this morning, carrying with it a hugely-under-appreciated piece of hardware.
Northrop Grumman and Boeing both have previously denied that they were submitting a bid for GPS IIIF, leaving Lockheed Martin as the only known bidder. But apparently, there was another response.
Typically, we see ULA chosen because the customer needs to know they can hit a specific timeline. In this case, SpaceX was chosen because ispace is confident SpaceX will be flying near where they need to go, sometime around when they need to go.
There’s some weird, gross politicking happening over in Israel around IAI lately.
Titan is, by far, the second coolest planetary body in the solar system and I can’t wait to see Dragonfly explore it in all its glory. It better get picked!
We haven’t heard from this little explorer yet, but it’s sitting pretty on its way into Perseverance Valley. Check out this beautiful shot of Opportunity from the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and then some landscape perspective from the incredible Seán Doran.
Some thoughts on the #dearMoon project, SpaceX’s announcement, and the essence of SpaceX’s strategy—bringing us along for the ride.
Still has the vibe of a solution in search of a problem, but I continually like the theory that Stratolaunch is the Glomar Explorer of aerospace.
Loren Grush joins Jake and Anthony to talk about whatever the hell SpaceX is going to announce, Opportunity’s troubles, the masterpiece that is Space Craft, and why you never start in Mexico.
Loren Grush joins Jake and Anthony to talk about whatever the hell SpaceX is going to announce, Opportunity’s troubles, the masterpiece that is Space Craft, and why you never start in Mexico.
Loren Grush joins Jake and Anthony to talk about whatever the hell SpaceX is going to announce, Opportunity’s troubles, the masterpiece that is Space Craft, and why you never start in Mexico.
Pat O. and I took a trip down to NASA Goddard to explore all that’s going on there. We talk a bit about our visit, what we saw and learned, and we talk with Brent Robertson, project manager of Restore-L, NASA’s satellite servicing mission.
We’ve been working hard to make Big Cartel for iOS even better. Now, your whole admin is in your pocket.
That’s a big step for a critically-important piece of technology. Phasor says it will be shipping its first antenna later this year or early next, so we’ll hear more on this front soon.