Main Engine Cut Off

Absolutely fascinating read about the work done by the 45th last week in response to the Amos-6 incident.

With each tweet from Elon Musk, it seems less and less likely to me that the Amos-6 incident was triggered from within the Falcon 9. If it’s discovered that there was an issue with the TE, now would be the best time to discover that.

If you need something good to watch this weekend, I suggest an Atlas-themed weekend, in honor of the launch of OSIRIS-REx, and ULA’s 111th straight successful launch.

A full transcript of Jeff Bezos’ email is at the link above, and they posted a nice animation of the flight on YouTube. They’ll be live-streaming the test in the “first part of October.”

They’re around $30 million under budget. It’s great to see a New Frontiers mission come in that far under budget.

Excellent table from /u/Kona314 showing every Falcon 9 launch with information about its static fire. Since Amos-6, it’s been going around that SpaceX has only just started doing static fires with the payload attached, and that’s absolutely false.

That’s a fine strategy for the here and now, but it isn’t a viable long-term strategy by any means. SpaceX isn’t the only one coming for Arianespace’s market share by way of reusability.

Blue Origin is going to be pretty damn active out on the Cape. Very exciting.

We’re still about a month out from OA-5, but it’s a good sign that Orbital ATK made any comment. The radio silence has been deafening after their static fire.

Absolutely fantastic read, and a great pick-me-up after SpaceX’s rough week. There are an incredible amount of parallels to the age that launched Boeing.