Main Engine Cut Off

Astra is finally making themselves known publicly by way of an Ashlee Vance feature for Bloomberg.

Nice win for SpaceX, but the most interesting part is that PACE is going to sun-synchronous orbit from Cape Canaveral rather than Vandenberg. SpaceX will be trying out this long-unused launch profile next month for the launch of SAOCOM-1B.

Very special thanks to the 361 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of January. MECO is entirely listener- and reader-supported, so your support keeps this blog and podcast going, growing, and improving, and most importantly, it keeps it independent.

I’m really excited to watch this project move forward. It’s a distinctly 2020s project, and has the feeling of something we’ll remember in the long view of space history.

Leave it to the man himself to write the nice version of my thoughts on the draft authorization.

I usually don’t give draft appropriations or authorization bills much focus here or on the podcast, though I do keep track of them to see where the Congressional mindset is on space policy. But the draft NASA authorization bill that the House Science Committee released last week is worth mentioning, because it is utterly atrocious policy making.

It’s important to remember that if you’ve got hardware on a test stand that can create fire—the good or the bad kind—you’re ahead of an extraordinarily large portion of all people who have ever tried to go to space.

A DARPA launch project, contracted out to Boeing, in the year 2020—I don’t know many people who would have bet on XS-1 panning out. And sure enough, less than three years after the award, Boeing has officially dropped out. I’m quite happy with how my thoughts on XS-1 have held up, three years later.

On the list of threats to the commercial launch market, unless and until something drastic changes, new Russian launch vehicles should sit just above the heat death of the universe.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Chris Carberry of Explore Mars to discuss his new book Alcohol in Space, and pitch themselves as the perfect test subjects.