I think it’s a budget allocation issue, not an overall budget issue. SLS+ML and Orion are absolute money pits. MSR was ballooning in price for all the wrong reasons. On top of that, NASA got a taste of firm fixed price contracts leading to companies underbidding and putting up their own money, which worked out in some cases and not others (SpaceX and Intuitive Machines on one side, Boeing and Collins on the other).
One of their competitors, ABL, just gave up on their commercial launch ambitions. Another one bites the dust.
There are actually tons of nuclear power systems like this in space:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_systems_in_space
Idk, Millennium, a Boeing subsidiary that makes satellites, just got a pretty good contract.
https://spacenews.com/millennium-space-secures-386-million-contract-for-missile-defense-satellites/
The suborbital one? At least this one sort of goes to orbit.
It might have been hit by something. Or it could have had a failure and blown itself up. The history of these buses and some previous observations on this satellite, plus Boeing being involved, makes me inclined to think it blew itself up.
It looks like some small pieces blew off the booster and there was a little fire at the end, but they recovered it and can work on solving that for the next flight. What a catch.
Companies like this make me wish I had the gall to sell snake oil to venture capitalists.
What a classic recipe. It’s a YC company with a McKinsey CEO.
Some startups are working and some aren’t. That shouldn’t be surprising. This is one of the reasons for dissimilar redundancy on a lot of these contracts.
“New Space” companies that survive the startup phase are stealing market share and giving a kick in the pants to legacy primes in a lot of areas. NASA centers need to shape up, too.