Main Engine Cut Off

We must be getting really close to that first launch.

A website alone won’t attract more customers, so it’s tough to read the tea leaves and say what exactly is transformative about the announcement. But the existence of the announcement alone shows how much of an effort ULA is making towards becoming competitive in commercial launch services.

Lately when I’ve been talking about political and financial tradeoffs made to sustain programs, I’ve been focusing on NASA’s exploration program, but the same things are true of Ariane 6.

Next week will be very interesting to watch. Keep an eye out for any and all decisions coming out of Lucerne, Switzerland.

After some investigation, a saturated IMU was blamed for causing the crash of Schiaparelli.

Electron is to one-month increments as Falcon Heavy is to six.

Chris Gebhardt of NASASpaceFlight talked with Orbital ATK’s Frank DeMauro about the switch from Antares to Atlas V for OA-7.

Photos and videos were posted on the SpaceX subreddit of the ITS composite tank as it headed out to the destructive sea testing that we heard about from Elon Musk himself.

Signed about a month ago, this report from the FAA states that they’ve cleared the environmental concerns surrounding Falcon 9 landings at Vandenberg. Great timing, as SpaceX should be back up and flying soon.

This is going to be an extremely interesting transition period. More of a “Let’s modernize this roadmap,” instead of a “Tear it all up!”