Rocket Lab is buying Iridium for $8 billion, Blue Origin has a new plan to get New Glenn flying again without rebuilding the same pad architecture, and NASA just awarded four new CLPS missions. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 32 executive producers—Warren, Matt from Built, Theo and Violet, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Natasha Tsakos, Lee, Donald, David, Matt, Joonas, Russell, Steve, Frank, Will and Lars from Agile, The Astrogators at SEE, Josh from Impulse, Fred, Joel, Kris, Pat, Joakim, Miles O’Brien, Stealth Julian, Jan, Ryan, and four anonymous—and hundreds of supporters. Topics Rocket Lab to acquire Iridium - SpaceNews Rocket Lab to Acquire Iridium in Historic Deal, Creating A New Glenn Return to Flight - Blue Origin NASA Awards More Moon Base Science, Previews New Opportunities NextSTEP-3 B: Moon Base Demonstrations - NASA Episode 154 - They Ran Into Us (with Matt Desch, CEO of Iridium) - Off-Nominal The Show Like the show? Support the show on Patreon or Substack! Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to anthony@mainenginecutoff.com Follow @WeHaveMECO Follow @meco@spacey.space on Mastodon Listen to MECO Headlines Listen to Off-Nominal Join the Off-Nominal Discord Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Artwork photo by SpaceX Work with me and my design and development agency: Pine Works

T+336: Rocket Lab Buys Iridium, New Glenn’s Pad Rebuild, and NASA Awards 4 CLPS Missions

Main Engine Cut Off

[SPEAKER_A] <LYRICS>Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cut Off. I am Anthony Colangelo. Three stories going on lately that I have some quick thoughts on. Rocket Lab, big announcement, buying Iridium Communications for about $8 billion. Blue Origin released some more information about their pad rebuild going on after the New Glenn</LYRICS> incident back in May. And, uh, just this week NASA announced four new CLPS missions. I feel like there's at least one interesting thing to unpack there about how they're handling these new awards. So some quick thoughts on each. Let's definitely start though with Rocket Lab. This is huge news. Um, this is something that I didn't quite expect, but I feel like I should have. Um, when you're looking at what Rocket Lab's been doing lately, what they've been talking about, what Iridium's been up to And Rocket Lab is at a very interesting point in their history. You know, if they were going— there, a lot of times people are like, is Amazon gonna sweep up Rocket Lab? Is Blue Origin gonna sweep up Rocket Lab? I think if Rocket Lab was going to sell, they would have a couple of years ago to something that was probably not New Spacey. Maybe they would become, you know, the theory that I had about Firefly trying to get consumed into Northrop Grumman as their partnership gets bigger and bigger. Kind of felt that about Rocket Lab a couple years ago as well. But obviously in the era, as they've accumulated more and more acquisitions, they have a different vision for what they're doing here, and rightly so. I think, you know, we talk a lot about SpaceX being an outlier. The nearest outlier is Rocket Lab.

T+336: Rocket Lab Buys Iridium, New Glenn’s Pad Rebuild, and NASA Awards 4 CLPS Missions

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

T+336: Rocket Lab Buys Iridium, New Glenn’s Pad Rebuild, and NASA Awards 4 CLPS Missions

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.