Main Engine Cut Off

A special preview of the MECO Headlines shows: Elon Musk kinda-sorta-maybe announces the Falcon Heavy demo payload, Russia and China carry out successful military launches, NASA announces some very interesting NextSTEP-2 contracts, OA-8E Cygnus departs ISS, and SpaceX’s SLC-40 is back, baby!

This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 23 executive producers—Kris, Mike, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, and five anonymous—and 107 other supporters on Patreon.

• Elon Musk on Twitter: “Falcon Heavy to launch next month from Apollo 11 pad at the Cape. Will have double thrust of next largest rocket.”
• Elon Musk on Twitter: “Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years…”
• Intelligence-gathering satellite deployed in orbit for Russian military - Spaceflight Now
• Russia launches Lotos mission via Soyuz 2-1B rocket | NASASpaceFlight.com
• Long March 2D space launch of mystery satellite continues China’s busy end to year
• Long March 2D lofts latest Yaogan Weixing satellite named LKW-1 | NASASpaceFlight.com
• NASASpaceFlight.com
• United Launch Alliance Selects L3 Technologies to Design Next-Generation Avionics Systems - United Launch Alliance
  
• Tory Bruno on Twitter: “@WeHaveMECO CDR in December. Tooling is the factory. First hardware in fab. pad mods underway”
• Tory Bruno on Twitter: “@WeHaveMECO Underway and going well”
• GOES-S weather satellite arrives in Florida for launch preparations - Spaceflight Now
• NASA seeks proposals for space resources technologies - SpaceNews.com
• NextSTEP-2 BAA Appendix D: In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Technology - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities
• Newsroom - PARC, a Xerox company
• Cygnus cargo craft released from space station, setting up for CubeSat deployments - Spaceflight Now
• “Flawless” OA-8E Cygnus departs ISS for 12 days of free-flight activities | NASASpaceFlight.com
• NanoRacks Launches Full External Cygnus Deployer on OA-8
• Delta 4 launch from California slips to January - Spaceflight Now
• Test-firing at repaired launch pad clears way for SpaceX cargo flight next week - Spaceflight Now
• Rocket Launch Schedule - Rocket Launch Live
• NASA Selects Three Companies to Develop 'FabLab' Prototypes | NASA
• NASA Selects Tethers Unlimited to... - Tethers Unlimited, Inc. | Facebook
• Tethers Unlimited wins NASA grant to work on lab for 3-D printing in space - GeekWire
• Rocket Lab pushes back second Electron launch by one day - Spaceflight Now
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