Main Engine Cut Off

We’ve heard about these fueling demos before, but it was a mystery when and where they would take place. Eric Berger has the intel.

Blue seems to be trying really hard to limit the downsides of dual manifesting, and a single price for a ride to orbit no matter how you fly or when is a huge departure from the norm. It really only makes sense two ways: the entry price for a ride on New Glenn is shockingly low, or Blue will have no shortage of their own payloads to fly. Or both.

Teslarati posted some great photos of the recent upgrades to Mr. Steven’s net. This thing looks absolutely batshit crazy.

AFSPC-52 is well within the performance of an expended Falcon 9, so this is exactly one of those scenarios predicted for Falcon Heavy’s use: flying a recoverable Falcon Heavy instead of an expended Falcon 9.

This language is surely the byproduct of ULA lobbying for funding that can be used for Centaur V and ACES, but I would absolutely support a program focused on upper stages.

“At four-months 20 days between Zuma and Iridium NEXT-6/GRACE-FO, this will be the fastest Falcon 9 first stage turnaround between flights to date.”

There are two payloads on CRS-14 that caught my eye as very important to the future in space.

Maybe the change was brought about by the seemingly-slower ramp up of BE-4 testing, but nonetheless it gets them to the pad quicker, simplifies their production lines and operations, and allows them to hit just about every useful flight profile from day one.