Main Engine Cut Off

Great, encyclopedic rundown of an interesting program by Chris Gebhardt on NASASpaceflight.

Some interesting-looking sessions on the agenda for today over at the ISS R&D conference—specifically with appearances by Tory Bruno of ULA, Frank Culbertson of Orbital ATK, Peter Diamandis of XPRIZE, and more.

In addition to an increased flight rate, they’re working on different experiment types for future New Shepard flights. I’ll be interested in how they handle exposed experiments, specifically to see if they will be done in a way applicable to unpressurized cargo space for any future cargo contracts they may get with their orbital-class vehicle.

The lack of other information here from XCOR regarding Lynx is strange. Very strange timing, just a few months after layoffs.

Moon Express will take over LC-17 and LC-18 to build test stands and a test flight area for tethered and free-flight tests of its lander.

Good signs for their progress towards a ground demonstrator engine in 2020.

Interesting rundown of the predicament that SLS is in for the Europa missions, EM-2, and beyond. And this doesn’t even touch on the budgetary issues surrounding the use of the EUS.

History will not be kind to the AR1 program. It’s a fairly expensive development program focused on building an American alternative to the RD-180, an engine used on a launch vehicle that will be phased out within 3-ish years of when the AR1 would be completed.

My friend Brandon designed a beautiful James Webb Space Telescope shirt. You should check it out.

France says they’re interested in backing ISS until 2024. And they continue to hope reusability doesn’t work out so that Ariane 6 can be competitive.