Issue #9

I’m back from my short hiatus with a few topics to kick off the year. On the public side, NASA selected two Discovery-class missions to study asteroids, and “awarded” four more flights for each Commercial Crew provider. On the private side, SpaceX is due to return to flight as soon as the once-a-decade weather clears out of California, and OneWeb recently received $1.2 billion in funding.

Asteroid Discovery Missions

There was a lot of hubbub around the fact that in the most recent round of Discovery mission selections, NASA selected two asteroid missions, funded NEOCam for another year, but left missions to Venus out entirely. I understand that concern, but put in context, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

The Asteroid Redirect/Retrieval/Whatever Mission certainly seems to be losing political support, and very plausibly could find itself removed from the NASA roadmap this year. With one of the biggest NASA asteroid missions on its way out and another—Dawn—drawing to a close, it makes sense to have something on the books for the future.

Additionally, asteroids, in general, are very interesting for our future in space. Asteroid and space resource mining has been picking up a lot of steam lately (especially in Luxembourg), and planetary defense will become of extreme importance eventually. For all those reasons and more, these mission selections make sense.

For Venus, all hope is not lost. Proposals for the fourth New Frontiers mission will be selected this November, with a winner selected in 2019, and I’d be surprised if a Venus-focused mission isn’t chosen. The bigger budget (~$1 billion) and timeline of New Frontiers programs could make it a very interesting mission. We’ll have to wait and see, but my bet would be on New Frontiers 4 featuring Venus exploration.

Commercial Crew

I put “awarded” in quotes, because this recent announcement from NASA really comes off as a symbolic promise. We’re obviously in a very tumultuous time here in the United States with no one quite sure how policy will shake out this year. Awarding four additional flights each to Boeing and SpaceX without providing funds or a commitment to future funding—since that matter is decided by Congressional appropriations—really shows this to be nearly empty political posturing.

It’ll make for a good talking point in Congressional sessions this year to say that NASA has 12 flights booked with 2 private companies for transportation to the ISS. In the meantime, with Commercial Crew delays and the recent Soyuz failure, NASA is in a tough spot for getting astronauts to the ISS.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge supporter of Commercial Crew and hope to see it flourish, and I even think the posturing seen here will be useful. But, that’s all it really is—posturing.

SpaceX and OneWeb

We’re still waiting on SpaceX’s return to flight, which got pushed to this upcoming weekend at the earliest. The one week we could really use some typical LA-area weather…and we get a once-in-a-decade weather pattern.

OneWeb’s massive round of financing is important for several reasons that can be summed up with a single word: growth. It shows a serious amount of investment and confidence in satellite internet constellations. With Iridium NEXT due to launch over the next year with SpaceX, and SpaceX’s own internet constellation coming soon, this is a growing industry with a lot of potential.

OneWeb is opening a facility in Exploration Park—just down the road from Blue Origin’s factory—to produce most of their 900 satellites. That area is a growing center of industry for spaceflight, and could become a major economic and political force. We’ve seen how centers of industry like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisana, and California can shape space policy. Florida already held a lot of political capital with Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center, but Exploration Park could become another component of that.

Another area that will benefit from OneWeb’s efforts: launch vehicles. OneWeb has 900 satellites to get to orbit, so they’re going to be using just about any and all launch vehicles. They’ve already signed big deals with Arianespace and Virgin Galactic. The Arianespace deal is worth over $1 billion and the Virgin Galactic deal will be key to bringing LauncherOne online.

Make sure to keep your eyes on OneWeb.

Thank you!

Thanks for reading the ninth issue of Main Engine Cut Off Weekly. Each week, I bring you what I find interesting and important in spaceflight, and you can get it however you like best—blog, podcast, or this here column. If you like what I’m doing, I’d really appreciate your support. Head over to Patreon and become a patron for as little as $1 per month. Everything I do is supported entirely by readers and listeners like you, and every little bit of support helps. Big thanks to those of you out there supporting!

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Thanks for reading, and I’ll talk to you next week.

— Anthony