Main Engine Cut Off

NASA selected SpaceX’s Starship as its ride for crew to the lunar surface as part of the Artemis program. As the Source Selection Statement outlines, Starship was selected as the sole winner because of the constrained lander budget. It’s an aggressive, interesting, and exciting move from NASA, so I have a lot of thoughts. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 40 executive produc...

President Biden nominated Bill Nelson to be the new NASA Administrator , so I check in on some of my past thoughts on NASA Administrators and Jim Bridenstine, talk about Bill Nelson’s history in space policy, and what the future may hold under a Bill Nelson NASA. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 39 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Mat...

Our good friend Jake Robins , host of WeMartians and my cohost on Off-Nominal , joins me to talk about the arrival and early operations of the 2021 Mars fleet— Hope , Tianwen-1 , and Perseverance . Then we dig into what the future of Martian exploration looks like, including strategy , communications , sample return , and the upcoming decadal survey. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought...

Peter Beck , Founder, CEO, and CTO of Rocket Lab , joins me to talk about going public, their new, bigger launch vehicle, Neutron , updates to their Electron and Photon offerings, eating hats , and avoiding eating hats in the future. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 39 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, C...

Relativity sorta-announced a bigger launch vehicle, Terran R. A few days later, Rocket Lab really announced a bigger launch vehicle, Neutron . I hate one announcement, and love the other. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 38 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan,...

SpaceX broke their turnaround record and is racking up quite the flight history across their Falcon fleet . Lockheed selected ABL for a launch from the Shetland Islands. Firefly shook up their board , is looking for new investment , and won a CLPS contract from NASA. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 37 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat,...

Christian Davenport , reporter at The Washington Post , joins me to talk about the aborted SLS Green Run hot fire , the space policy landscape as we enter a new administration, Axiom’s Ax-1 mission and its crew , and Virgin Orbit’s first successful launch to orbit . This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 37 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat,...

Meagan Crawford , Co-Founder and Managing Partner of SpaceFund and host of the Mission Eve podcast , joins the show to talk about the financing side of space. We talk about recent rounds of fundraising, acquisitions, holding companies, and she helps me sort through my thoughts on the whole Special Purpose Acquisition Company trend. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 36 execut...

Andrew Jones returns to the show for the third time to talk about China’s current missions and future plans, including Chang’e-5 , Tianwen-1 , the Chinese Space Station , and the international politics surrounding it. And then we dig into the Chinese commercial market a bit— launch companies and remote sensing companies are raising a ton of money, but it’s not yet clear what effect that will have...

NASA awarded Venture Class Launch Services contracts to Astra, Firefly, and Relativity. Astra almost made orbit with its most recent test flight of Rocket 3.2. And something is up at Firefly , but I don’t know what yet. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 35 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Warren, Bob, Ru...

Starship SN8 took flight last week on a mostly-successful mission to test its final descent phase. I share some thoughts on the test , the state of Starship development, and what that all means for the near future of Starship. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 36 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, W...

A lot of big, long-running projects have faced delays recently, and it seems like as good a time as any to check in and share some related thoughts. I cover a lot in this one: the Orion PDU issue , Ariane 6 , Japan’s H3 , Dream Chaser , Vulcan , and New Glenn . This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 36 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt,...

SpaceX Crew-1 successfully launched and docked last week , kicking off a new era of the ISS. It’s a good time to zoom out and look at the ISS program overall, and what it means for the future of space development. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 36 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, R...

With a massive amount of news happening in the week following the election here in the US, it’s a good opportunity to give everyone a listen in on MECO Headlines . I run through all the stories of the week each and every weekend just like this for the supporters of MECO, so if you like what you hear, join the Headlines tier or higher ! This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 37 ex...

Last week, IAC 2020 brought a flurry of announcements and statements to digest. It’s a good time to check in on current and future lunar politics, with some statements by the ever-antagonistic Rogozin , seven countries signing onto the Artemis Accords , a handful of lunar development contracts announced, and the US election within sight. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 38...

The Space Development Agency has selected L3Harris and SpaceX to produce satellites for a missile warning constellation . I break down the details of the SDA project, the technical aspects, and what it means to see SpaceX enter the world of satellite manufacturing and sales. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 38 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kr...

I’m back after a few wonderful weeks offline with my newly-arrived son, Will ! I figured I’d jump back in with a rundown of the important and notable bits of news that happened while I was gone. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 38 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Nadim, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, John...

There have been a ton of recent updates from commercial small launch companies, like increased payload mass and volume from Rocket Lab, contracts and funding from ABL, solved vibration issues from Virgin Orbit, and a few others. With a handful of vehicles on the verge of their first launch, it’s a good time to take a higher-level look at these competitors. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is br...

The long-awaited news is finally here! ULA and SpaceX have won the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 launch contracts from the US Department of Defense , which leaves Blue Origin’s New Glenn and Northrop Grumman’s OmegA out in the cold . I talk through what this means for each company and launch vehicle, and where things will go from here on all sides of the issue. This episode of Main...

Phillip Hargrove , a Launch Vehicle Trajectory Analyst at NASA joins me to talk about NASA’s Launch Services Program . We discuss how LSP interacts with mission teams like Mars 2020 Perseverance , launch providers like United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, and what kind of work they tackle in their unique role tying it all together. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 39 executiv...

Two members of the Astrobotic team join me for a conversation: Laura Klicker, Payload Systems Management Lead, and Daniel Gillies, Mission Director for the Griffin/VIPER mission. We talk about Astrobotic’s first Peregrine mission coming up next year, the very exciting VIPER mission to the south pole of the Moon in 2023, payload management across multiple flights, the technical aspects of their var...

Caleb Henry of SpaceNews returns to the show to talk about the OneWeb acquisition and related fallout, Starlink antennas , the ongoing C-band drama including the satellite-buying bonanza , and he helps us understand the FCC-GPS-Ligado situation . This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 38 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Nadi...

To start, there’s exciting news! My son is due at the end of August, and so I’ll be taking some time off after he arrives. Before that, I wanted to check in on two storylines. Professional shit-stirrer Dmitry Rogozin made it pretty clear that Russia is not interested in the Artemis Program, while various countries around the world partner with NASA on it. And we’re only a few weeks out from the NS...

NASA recently established the Suborbital Crew office within the Commercial Crew Program, which will focus on developing a plan to fly personnel on suborbital spaceflights. At the same time, Virgin Galactic signed an agreement with NASA to provide private orbital spaceflights to the ISS. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 38 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Kris, P...

Grant Bonin , Senior Vice President of Business Development at Spaceflight joins me to talk about everything they’ve been up to lately, including being acquired , signing deals with SpaceX for rideshares on Starlink missions and on dedicated flights to SSO , signing deals with new launch companies and international providers , and a lot more including manifesting satellites, last-mile services, an...