Main Engine Cut OffMuch cleaner structure—and a better name—for a solution I still don’t believe in much at all. Interestingly, the rebrand frees up the “Vulcan” name in the aerospace field, at a time when there have been rumors of a potential rebrand for ULA.
James Dean with a great article for Florida Today on SES, SpaceX, and reusability.
The last two weeks have been filled with a bunch of smaller stories—SpaceX’s GPS III bid win and upcoming SES-10 launch, ULA’s decision on Vulcan’s engines and Congress’ potential meddling, and the ISS beyond 2024.
Read the whole post over on Masten’s blog. Great to see progress on safer storable propellants and Masten’s lander. There’s also a video from a few months ago of MXP-351 performance testing.
Paywalled article, but the viewable introduction says it all.
Jeff Bezos’ most recent email update on Blue Origin was all about the BE-4 and its hydrostatic bearings. Interestingly, George Sowers, VP of Advanced Concepts & Technologies at ULA, commented on their use of hydrostatic bearings on Twitter.
I’m not surprised to see rising prices—after all, you don’t have to outrun the bear, just the ones you’re running alongside.
This is the true coming-of-age moment for ULA. Fight for independence and a surely-more-exciting future, or take the “safe” government job like your parents think you should. Look, they already got you in the door because of their friends that work there. You’re practically a shoo-in.
Explorer is something that seems so simple and obvious in hindsight, but only became possible once a few things came together in the right way: the rise of small satellites, the increase of launch availability, and easy distribution on the web, to name a few.
It’s a shame that SpaceX is getting so distracted by all their other projects.