And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
SpaceX had a great night launching the CRS-9 mission, and it’s all good signs for their future. The Senate hearing, as I predicted, was focused on maintaining the status quo. US and Russian engineers and scientists have some ideas on the future of international space policy.
Describing Spaceport America as “fully operational” isn’t untrue, but still somewhat of an overstatement.
Some interesting insight into SSL’s inner-workings, as well as some good follow-up on the discussion Logan and I had about chemical vs. electric satellites.
To me, Mars is where all the interesting discoveries live and our future awaits, but lunar missions are much better suited for a governmental space program—or at least for a governmental space program that is run like NASA has been run for decades.
Fantastic breakdown of the Mars 2020 rover CAD render by Lars Osborne. Touches on some changes from Curiosity, and new experiments and hardware—including the tiny helicopter and the sample return storage system.
A tug-of-war like this between ESA and the EU could have some harmful fallout, especially with tensions already high after the Brexit referendum.
NASA’s Resource Prospector mission is important. We have to learn how to live off the land if we want to go anywhere. The more people working on that problem, the better.
I’ve been harping on three things in particular as the most important aspects of SpaceX’s 2016 work: schedule certainty, flight rate, and reuse. Last night was filled with good signs for SpaceX’s future.
There are a few interesting bits in NASA’s latest release about the Mars 2020 rover—tighter landing ellipses, better site selection, and better imagery during EDL.
More good signs for ESA’s exploration plans. Whatever decisions come out of the ESA’s December meeting should be exciting.
As I said the other day (and ranted about on the podcast this week), this hearing was focused on maintaining the status quo at all costs.
As I’ve been talking about on the podcast lately, China is looking to partner with anyone and everyone, but the US is still stubbornly shutting them out.
Great, encyclopedic rundown of an interesting program by Chris Gebhardt on NASASpaceflight.
Some interesting-looking sessions on the agenda for today over at the ISS R&D conference—specifically with appearances by Tory Bruno of ULA, Frank Culbertson of Orbital ATK, Peter Diamandis of XPRIZE, and more.
Ted Cruz called a hearing on NASA’s space exploration policy in the next president’s administration. The president of France’s CNES discussed some policy statements, and I went on a rant about his thoughts on Ariane 6 and its competition.
In addition to an increased flight rate, they’re working on different experiment types for future New Shepard flights. I’ll be interested in how they handle exposed experiments, specifically to see if they will be done in a way applicable to unpressurized cargo space for any future cargo contracts they may get with their orbital-class vehicle.
The lack of other information here from XCOR regarding Lynx is strange. Very strange timing, just a few months after layoffs.
Moon Express will take over LC-17 and LC-18 to build test stands and a test flight area for tethered and free-flight tests of its lander.
Good signs for their progress towards a ground demonstrator engine in 2020.
Interesting rundown of the predicament that SLS is in for the Europa missions, EM-2, and beyond. And this doesn’t even touch on the budgetary issues surrounding the use of the EUS.