Main Engine Cut Off

Jamie and Matt of The Interplanetary Podcast had Jake and I on their show for a wrap-up of 2018. I could not possibly have had more fun doing this episode—give it a listen!

As if there wasn’t enough mystery as to what’s up with OneWeb lately, Maria Kolomychenko has an exclusive over at Reuters.

After the Swarm incident, Spaceflight is not messing around with licensing issues.

Pretty cool to see Spaceflight sign a deal like this, where they book a full-size primary payload and will match secondary payloads with it on a dedicated launch. Seems like an attractive service for all parties, and I hope to see more of it in the future.

Jake and I discuss what 2018 will mean to future space historians, and announce the winner of The 2018 Off-Nominal Award.

Dr. Marco Langbroek wrote an intriguing post about the upcoming NROL-71 payload.

Sounds like they are delaying 300 satellites, not specifically downsizing the entire constellation.

The one mystery they’re still working to solve: it appears as if Chang’e 4 is 90° out of the expected plane.

I find Jonathan McDowell’s paper convincing, and I’ve always loved the X-15, so in the spirit of consistency, yes, SpaceShipTwo reached space today on its flight to 82.7 kilometers.

Scott Tilley leaves us with a few theories towards the end of the post, but this doesn’t seem like a good sign.