Main Engine Cut Off

Jonathan Barlow from the NASA Ames Research Center joins me to talk about Astrobee—the free-flying robots on the International Space Station that test new technologies, sensors, and operations, and assist astronauts and mission controllers alike. Jonathan is the Astrobee Lead Engineer and has been with the program since the beginning, so we go way back to its origins and talk in-depth about what the robots are up to today on the ISS.

Northrop Grumman and Firefly announced a partnership to develop a new first stage for Antares—the same first stage that will power Firefly’s larger launch vehicle, Beta. It’s a great partnership for both parties that will surely lead to more interesting things in the future.

Mike Loucks and John Carrico of Space Exploration Engineering join me to talk about astrogation, mission planning, missions they’ve worked on, how they interact with teams of all types, and everything else they do at SEE.

Rick Mastracchio, former NASA astronaut and current Director Of Business Development at Northrop Grumman Space Systems, joins me to talk about Northrop Grumman’s Commercial Space Station concept that they are working on as part of NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations program.

NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program is in a tricky spot right now. VIPER has been delayed a year, new task orders are being awarded to new teams like the one led by Draper, and Masten is all but dead.

Some thoughts on where we are now that Dmitry Rogozin has been dismissed as head of Roscosmos, and that NASA and Roscosmos have signed a seat exchange agreement for future flights to the ISS.

Our good friend Jake Robins, host of WeMartians and my cohost on Off-Nominal, joins me to talk about Psyche missing its launch window, the state of the SIMPLEx program, its troubles with launch slots, and how NASA might approach this in the future.

Brad Cheetham, co-founder, CEO, and President of Advanced Space joins me to talk about their upcoming CAPSTONE mission. We talk about how the mission came to be, what it’s been like working with NASA and the other partners on the mission, and then dive into the nerdy details of the trajectory it’s flying to the moon, the orbits it will operate in, how its autonomous positioning system works, and how it might be used in the future.

Amazon is purchasing up to 83 launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance—in addition to the 9 Atlas V launches they bought last year—to deploy their Project Kuiper constellation. This is a huge deal that changes the game for heavy lift launch providers, and has major implications for the small launch providers in the industry.

A follow-up on my last show with Debra Werner about the war in Ukraine and all the fallout from it, both political and industrial. Everything from the NASA budgets for 2022 and 2023, NASA telling astronauts to stop tweeting, the increased importance of European human spaceflight, and how the launch industry might shift in the future.