I’m Anthony Colangelo.

Really interesting stuff from SES, who is always looking to push the industry forward. The current era of GEO is coming to a close, and this sounds like the structure of the next.

It took 81 hours of printing followed by about 10–15 hours of assembly, integration, and testing. I lost count of all the test prints I ran, the bad prints I’ve stopped, and all the circuits I tested, but including those would push the numbers much, much higher. But it’s finally complete.

We’re seeing the same strategy from several players in the market with several launch vehicles—ULA with Atlas V, Arianespace with Ariane 6, and ILS with Proton Medium. Cutting costs and optimizing launch vehicles to compete at current Falcon 9 prices is going to work for the next few years, at least.

SpaceX’s Gwynne Shotwell gave a talk at Stanford last night, and several redditors were in attendance. They’ve posted their notes over at r/spacex, and there are some really interesting tidbits in there, specifically regarding BFR, its launch site, and its production.

Plain and simple: missions to the Moon are hamstrung by Orion—specifically by the European Service Module and its pitifully-small delta-V budget.

Peter B. de Selding wrote a nice report over at Space Intel Report on comments made by SpaceX Senior Director Tom Ochinero at APSCC 2017.

If you’ve been listening to and/or reading my stuff for a bit, you probably know Jake Robins of WeMartians. He and I both do podcasts with fairly regular formats and topics we cover (he more than I…), and have been wanting an outlet with a loose format where we can discuss things outside of our typical realms (but still space-y). And most importantly, we wanted a place to hang out and talk space on a regular basis.

I wonder how many—if any—of those ACES improvements will find their way into this Centaur upgrade. Interestingly, ACES was not mentioned once.

Great breakdown of yesterday’s meeting and the work and decisions that lie ahead for the National Space Council, NASA, and the elephant in the room: Congress.​​

I speculated last week that there is potential for schedule tension between Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 with the former seemingly slipping into 2018. This two month slip gives Falcon Heavy some breathing room.

At this point, is there anyone out there who hasn’t signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding Dream Chaser missions?

However odd the announcement, this would (will?) be great. It adds a massive amount of storage space and opens up a ton of room for work on the ISS. Coupled with the increased crew size that Commercial Crew will bring, this sets the stage for a very productive next few years on the ISS.

As 2017 begins to look less and less likely, my mind starts to wander into 2018. How close will SpaceX be comfortable running the Falcon Heavy schedule up to Dragon 2 demo missions—with or without crew?

Very special thanks to the 102 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of September. Your support keeps this blog and podcast going, and most importantly, it keeps it independent.