And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
Thanks to my patrons for the month of October. 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.
Friday afternoon before a holiday: the time to bury press releases. I’m not sure why SpaceX buried this particular update since the news is encouraging.
Chris Bergin of NASASpaceFlight, with an encyclopedic post about the work that will need to take place—between EM-1 and 2—to revamp the Mobile Launcher to support the Exploration Upper Stage.
It’s important to keep the budgets of NASA and other governmental agencies in context: NASA is spending billions per year on Orion’s development. Roscosmos is spending an average of $122 million per year on Federation.
After putting together a component test unit, I hooked it up to a Teensy++ 2.0—the brains of the controller—and took it for a spin in X-Plane.
Part of the Flight Control collection.
In light of the recent Schiaparelli lander failure, I discuss the differences between missions supported by financial and political capital, and how those differences will play out in the next era of space exploration.
The mission status report says, “The team is still investigating the cause of the reboot and assessing two main engine check valves.” and gives no other update on the delayed orbit-lowering maneuver. The lack of information on that front is a little worrying, to say the least.
Let’s hope that the Rocket Lab test launch isn’t the new Falcon Heavy—always two months away.
I know, Schiaparelli wasn’t the primary mission. I know, you have to work hard to inform the public and those who hold the purse strings that ExoMars 2016 as a whole is still a success (so far).
I’m still excited about the Antares return to flight earlier this week, and am looking forward to Cygnus’ arrival this upcoming weekend. I finally finished uploading my photos and videos of the OA-5 launch.
I took a trip down to Wallops Island, Virginia this week for the launch of OA-5—the return to flight for Antares, sending Cygnus up to the ISS on a resupply mission. I recorded this episode on the long drive home afterwards, and talked about what Antares’ return means for Orbital ATK and what their future may hold—both good and bad.
There have been some revelations on the SpaceX front on how they’ll handle the production of Dragons moving forward, and how they’ll introduce propulsive landings.
I’ll be interested in what kinds of missions Antares launches in the future, and how viable a market it could be for Orbital ATK. Antares—due to its launch site and payload capacity—has a somewhat limited mission scope. We don’t yet know what they’d sell launches for, so that’s the big variable here.
Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX, spoke at two events and dropped some tidbits about the Falcon 9 investigation, future versions of the vehicle, and what kind of discount they would offer for “flight-proven” stages. I break down the new info, and discuss their reusability discount.
I’ve been in the thick of my Big Cartel Employee Art Grant project for the past few months. I’ve been sourcing components, working on various mounts and enclosures, and designing the final product.
Part of the Flight Control collection.
In response to this, I saw a lot of people scoffing and saying “Only 10 percent? They had said 30!” The sentiment seemed to be that SpaceX missed their mark and can’t offer a 30 percent reduction right now, rather than realizing that they are making a sensible decision.
The RFI seems to indicate that an extended Cygnus would be a great fit for the flight, as we’ve seen Orbital ATK talking up previously.
After a few busy weeks of Blue Origin and SpaceX news, I spend some time talking about ULA’s RapidLaunch program and how they are working to get competitive within the commercial market.
Thanks to my patrons for the month of September. 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.
Pretty interesting to read through what NanoRacks has announced. They even mention human-tended experiments once Blue Origin starts flying people aboard New Shepard.