Main Engine Cut Off

The total firing duration was about two Shuttle flights to orbit, so total duration isn’t the surprising thing here—it’s the fact that they could turn the engine around quick enough to pull this off. We’ll see where this goes from here, but I don’t have high hopes.

Shannon Stirone joined Jake and I for a deep dive into the history, present, and future of the Deep Space Network—including some crazy stories about the DSN getting hacked.

Though ISRO doesn’t have an official human spaceflight program just yet, they’re making good progress on fundamental components, including the abort systems and the launch vehicle—GSLV Mk. III. Looks like this was a successful test of the abort system, save for the crew module separating from the parachutes on final descent.

Very special thanks to the 206 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of June. Your support keeps this blog and podcast going, and most importantly, it keeps it independent.

It certainly reads to me like they really want to see some details about what New Glenn could offer, and they want to know if Blue Origin would put a bid in for the launch.

Dawn is now in its final orbit at Ceres, and it has a shockingly-low periapsis of 35 kilometers. For some perspective, SpaceShipTwo’s most recent flight achieved a peak altitude of 34.9 kilometers.

I’ve heard that they did lose a day due to weather last week, and have been working around some since, but this is at least somewhat encouraging. I’ve also heard a lot of skepticism about the vehicle that is supposed to be attached to this engine, but I guess we’ll see soon.

It’s good to see this sort of hardware coming through the production lines. I’m excited to see ULA launch one of these brawny Centaurs. The last—and only—flight of a Dual Engine Common Centaur was 16 years ago—over four and a half years before ULA was formed.

My long-term gut feeling: we’ll one day look at life in the solar system the way we do water and geologic activity today. We used to think just about everywhere but Earth was barren and static, and we’re constantly surprised whenever we go somewhere.

Contrary to what was reported in SpaceNews a few days ago, there will be more than one captive carry test, there won’t be a captive carry test next week, and there will be a drop test before the first launch attempt. The test campaign will take most of the summer, so I wouldn’t expect to see engines light until the end of August or even September.