Main Engine Cut OffI wanted to spend some time breaking down a few news items from last week that may be leading indicators of trends for 2019: layoffs at Stratolaunch, Tethers Unlimited, and SpaceX, and Relativity signed a lease for Launch Complex 16 at Cape Canaveral.
Good to see them secure a launch site, but they’re still on the hunt for a polar-capaable site. Maybe SLC-3W at Vandenberg?
Chris Gebhardt of NASASpaceflight joins me to talk all things SpaceX: Starship and its upcoming hopper tests, DM-1 and the government shutdown, and more.
Rough end to last week for space.
They are in need of a good example of their flight safety procedures, and while the event will surely be used by some to criticize SpaceX and their operations, anyone looking to give an honest assessment of the situation will come away impressed with the flight operations yesterday.
As I was recording yesterday’s show about Starlink, SpaceX filed an application with the FCC for some changes to the Starlink plan. I read through the report and it confirms some of what I talked about yesterday, so thought it was worth an update.
I share some space-focused takeaways from the US midterm elections and a thought that I had about recent Starlink reports.
Linkspace is interesting to follow along with, and I’m excited to see how they do with their bigger hardware. But check out the photo in the article—they consistently use forced perspective like this to make their hardware look enormous.
This month, I take on questions about small launch, future space ventures, and the Boeing/SLS saga/drama.
Just a few weeks back they announced the selection of ULA for a ViaSat-3 launch, and now they’ve firmed up what was an existing option for a Falcon Heavy launch in the 2020–2022 timeframe—the same timeframe as the ULA mission.