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.

T+177: NASA VCLS 2, Relativity, Astra, and Firefly

MECO is opinion and analysis of spaceflight, exploration, policy, and strategy, by Anthony Colangelo.

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United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan debut went smoothly, but sluggish hardware integration raises doubts about meeting commitments, while Orion faces heat shield issues, potentially shaking up the Artemis manifest.

T+274: The Vulcan and Artemis Roadmaps

NASA is heading back to the drawing board for a Mars Sample Return architecture, and is accepting proposals for mission studies by May. I talk about a few takeaways from the communication of that plan, and ponder whether or not SpaceX is going to do the damn thing.

T+273: Mars Sample Return

NASA selected 3 teams to work on unpressurized rovers for Artemis, while Japan signed on officially to provide a pressurized rover in exchange for seats on Artemis landers. Elsewhere, Mitsubishi took a stake in Starlab, and I still needed to catch up on Starship’s 3rd flight and the ensuing update from SpaceX.

T+272: Moon Rovers, Space Stations, and Starships

Andrew Jones returns to the show to catch up on the Chinese space industry—Tiangong, reusable launchers, constellations, and the Moon.

T+271: Checking in on the Chinese Space Industry (with Andrew Jones)

Neel Kunjur, Co-Founder and CTO of K2 Space, joins me to talk about their vision for the future of satellites and the wider space industry, what they’ve been up to lately, and what their roadmap to the launch pad looks like from here.

T+177: NASA VCLS 2, Relativity, Astra, and Firefly

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