And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
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.
Anthony and Jake unpack the National Space Council’s inaugural meeting, SpaceX’s BFR update from IAC, and the future of Falcon Heavy.
Anthony and Jake unpack the National Space Council’s inaugural meeting, SpaceX’s BFR update from IAC, and the future of Falcon Heavy.
Anthony and Jake unpack the National Space Council’s inaugural meeting, SpaceX’s BFR update from IAC, and the future of Falcon Heavy.
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.
Chris Gebhardt of NASASpaceflight joins me to discuss Elon Musk’s presentation last week, in which he provided an update to the BFR.
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.
Northrop Grumman is acquiring Orbital ATK in a $9.2 billion deal. Lockheed Martin unveiled a new family of satellite busses, positioning themselves for the next era of satellite bus production.
Elon Musk’s long-awaited IAC update is coming up next week. Interestingly, his session has a moderator. And that moderator is none other than Jean-Yves Le Gall.
Formerly of Honeywell, United Space Alliance, and The Aerospace Corporation, Smith has a ton of experience and a very interesting background to bring to Blue Origin.
Blue Origin announced a size increase to New Glenn’s fairing, and OneWeb has decided to keep their Toulouse factory open for other customers after their initial 10-satellite production run is over. Both decisions bring about some interesting implications for the market at large.
Not quite what I would call an unexpected first customer for Ariane 6, but this at least gives us 3 launches to put on the calendar. The first launch has the surprisingly-specific date of July 16, 2020, with these two to follow shortly thereafter.
This is a very smart move for OneWeb. I could very much see the ~200 kilogram satellite becoming to the next decade what the ~5,000 kilogram satellite has been to the last few.
With every step taken towards the launchpad, Blue Origin gets more confident, they open up, and they let the industry know just what’s coming its way.
I’ve added a new tier to the MECO Patreon: at $3 per month (or above!), you’ll get access to the weekly MECO Headlines podcast. Each Friday, I’ll be recording and publishing a show where I sit down, run through the headlines of the week’s space news, and discuss some of those smaller-yet-still-great stories.