And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
Tanya Harrison joins Jake and Anthony to discuss the James Webb Space Telescope delays, planetary missions and their ability to stay under budget and on time, and the benefits and drawbacks of decadal surveys.
Tanya Harrison joins Jake and Anthony to discuss the James Webb Space Telescope delays, planetary missions and their ability to stay under budget and on time, and the benefits and drawbacks of decadal surveys.
Tanya Harrison joins Jake and Anthony to discuss the James Webb Space Telescope delays, planetary missions and their ability to stay under budget and on time, and the benefits and drawbacks of decadal surveys.
NASA had some interesting comments on the Lunar Gateway at a recent NASA Advisory Council meeting—the program is eschewing cost-plus contracting, but it’s lacking vision.
Caleb Henry got a great scoop on some changes Blue Origin is making to New Glenn. I think through why these changes may have been made and what these changes could mean for the near future.
Quieter than the SEPTA buses that drive by my front door here in Philadelphia. I’ll be keeping an eye on this.
In the Flexible Path era, NASA has always been flexible on both the vision and the details. That is why the human exploration program is floundering.
Very special thanks to the 176 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of March. Your support keeps this blog and podcast going, and most importantly, it keeps it independent.
Chris Gebhardt of NASASpaceflight wrote a great rundown of Orbital ATK’s Next Generation Launcher that included a great little nugget of info at the end.
There are two payloads on CRS-14 that caught my eye as very important to the future in space.
Large federal funding of a Boeing-built system which the private sector says is unnecessary because they can provide the government with more services for less money. Sounds familiar.
Maybe the change was brought about by the seemingly-slower ramp up of BE-4 testing, but nonetheless it gets them to the pad quicker, simplifies their production lines and operations, and allows them to hit just about every useful flight profile from day one.
Caleb Henry of SpaceNews returns to talk Satellite 2018, megaconstellations, flat-panel antennas, and the current state of the satellite industry.
A few interesting documents have been released: the late-but-final 2018 appropriations, NASA’s lunar cargo lander request for information, and the public summary of the NASA Independent Review Team’s investigation into the CRS-7 mishap. And a few interesting announcements were made: NASA Acting Administration Robert Lightfoot is going to retire, and the Air Force awarded contracts for another round of EELV Phase 1A launches.
Hmm.
This seems like a great addition to the MEV architecture, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it grew out of customer inquiries for a stationkeeping-only service, rather than one that includes attitude control, too.
I’m holding off on making too many assessments of the Swarm authorization fiasco until we know a little more than we do now. Did one of the parties knowingly make a nefarious decision to proceed? Or did this really fall through the cracks because of how many parties were involved in getting these satellites up?
NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot appeared in front of the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee to discuss the 2019 NASA budget request, and I’ve got some thoughts on their decisions regarding the SLS Mobile Launcher and how it affects SLS’ flight rate. And then I get off onto a train of thought regarding the stagnation of and opportunity within the policy gridlock we’re stuck in today.
We’ll see if anything comes of this, and “last summer” is not an insignificant amount of time in the past, but it’s at least an intriguing project to think about and consider. I’d hate to see Stratolaunch repeat some mistakes from Shuttle with Black Ice, though.
Brendan Bryne joins Jake and Anthony to discuss the National Space Council, the 2019 NASA Budget Request, and the wonders of Jai Alai.