I’m Anthony Colangelo.

This is encouraging to hear. Long coast periods are key to some more complex flight profiles—specifically direct injection into geostationary orbit—and SpaceX has yet to show that ability. It’s one area that ULA still owns with Centaur and the Delta Cryogenic Second Stage.

It’ll be very interesting to see if something like this does come about, but the suggest name is awful. They need to go with something with a long life span, like the Spaceflight Development Office.

You would have a hard time painting Luxembourg, a country with an area less than 1,000 square miles, as expansionist in any regard. And I don’t think they’d be looking to put any of their 1,000 military members on a base somewhere out beyond Earth. And they don’t have any nuclear weapons.

It’s a small start, sure, but a really good sign for the “COTS Everything” mindset that I would like to see prevail in the coming years.

Thanks to my patrons for the month of April. If you’re getting some value out of what I do here and want to send a little value back to help support Main Engine Cut Off, head over to Patreon and donate as little as $1 a month—every little bit helps.

An interesting tidbit from Jeff Foust in the wake of yesterday’s Senate subcommittee meeting.

This next year is pivotal for NASA, and for the trajectory of US-based spaceflight, in general. The pieces on the table can be arranged to either double down on the status quo—NASA needs more money and it needs a plan, dammit!—or to shed the old baggage and embrace a new way of thinking.

I joined our good friend Brendan Byrne on his great podcast, Are We There Yet?, to discuss the ins and outs of how a Falcon first stage finds its way back to the landing pad. If you haven’t listened to his podcast just yet, there’s no better time than now to head on over and do just that.

A nice blog post about what it is they do over there, and why people fly with Masten. It’s a great read if you aren’t familiar with what they do, and still a great read even if you are.

Somehow I don’t think reusing reaction control engines is the thing that’s going to allow Boeing to be competitive in the current commercial space environment.

Jon Goff with some thoughts on how the second generation megaconstellations will be impacted by the presence of SpaceX as both a constellation operator and launch provider.

An interesting report by /u/Colege_Grad/ over on the Blue Origin subreddit points to the fact that Blue Origin will have its next New Shepard vehicles in Texas by May.

With the launch of OA–7, I’ve been thinking about the interplay between Cygnus, Antares, Atlas V, and Orbital ATK’s Next-Generation Launch Vehicle.

Saying the end goal is to develop two launch vehicles doesn’t mean the Air Force is only giving out two contracts. They could—and probably should—award more than two contracts, so that they can still meet their goal even if one or more contenders fail for any reason.

Regardless of how you think our collective plans should be organized, we can all agree that we’d rather see something happen. Let’s be honest about where we’re headed, and get on with it.

I haven’t said much about NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gateway and Transport architecture yet, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

Downsizing, relocating to a lower-cost location, and doubling-down on just about the only politicians who have been working for them lately.