Category Archives: Space Transportation

AAS Paper Review: RAAN Agnostic 3-Burn Departure Methodology for Deep Space Missions from LEO Depots (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

About a year ago, I wrote a review of an AAS conference paper that I coauthored with a few of my astrogator friends, Mike Loucks and John Carrico regarding an mission design tool for enabling the use of LEO depots … Continue reading →

Posted in Launch Vehicles, NEOs, Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation | 9 Comments

AAS Paper Review: Practical Methodologies For Low Delta-V Penalty, On-Time Departures To Arbitrary Interplanetary Destinations From A Medium-Inclination Low-Earth Orbit Depot

Posted on February 3, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

I’d like to share a technical paper about propellant depots and interplanetary mission orbital dynamics that I helped co-author this past year, with the help of two of my astrogator friends, Mike Loucks and John Carrico of Space Exploration Engineering … Continue reading →

Posted in Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, ULA | 12 Comments

Random Thoughts: RLVs and Megaconstellations

Posted on April 14, 2017 by Jonathan Goff

Last month I was out in Washington DC for a satellite industry conference (the 2017 Satellite Show). My startup has been working on a cool satellite servicing related project that I need to blog about soon, and we were out … Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Origin, Business, Launch Vehicles, MSS, Random Thoughts, RLV Markets, Space Transportation, SpaceX | 12 Comments

Random Thoughts: First Pass Analysis of a White Dragon/Xeus Lunar Sortie Mission

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Jonathan Goff

After yesterday’s SpaceX announcement of having booked two customers for a Apollo-8 style mission around the Moon and back, using Falcon Heavy and Dragon V2, I got thinking about ways to take the next step in lunar tourism–surface missions. Now, … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, Random Thoughts, Space Exploration, Space Transportation, SpaceX, ULA, YHABFT | 51 Comments

SpaceX Mars Plans: Jon’s First Take

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

I’ve had a lot of friends ping me today about my thoughts on Elon’s Mars talk today. I was in a meeting when it happened, and literally was pinged by half a dozen people during the meeting… Now that I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, ISRU, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, Mars, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Exploration, Space Settlement, Space Transportation, SpaceX, ULA, Venus | 60 Comments

The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part 4–Propellantless Horizontal Soft-Landing Methods

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

As mentioned previously in Part 2 of this series, one of the key elements in establishing a lunar beachhead is developing ways to safely and affordably land payloads and people on the lunar surface. In Part 3, we discussed a … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes, Space Development, Space Settlement, Space Transportation, Technology | 29 Comments

The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part 2–The Beachhead Analogy

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

This observation may already be bleedingly obvious to everyone else, but I feel it is worth explicitly stating: One of the top priorities of early missions to any destination in the solar system should be to drive down the cost … Continue reading →

Posted in ISRU, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes, Space Settlement, Space Transportation | 30 Comments

Lunar Orbital Facility Location Options

Posted on April 16, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

For travel throughout cislunar space, I’ve long been an advocate of having depots on both ends of the journey. The LEO depot provides a refueling stop at the first practical point after leaving the ground, and also a spot for … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Transportation | 18 Comments

ESIL-8 Elements of Lunar Commerce Presentation

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

I was invited to give a talk on lunar commerce at a Emerging Space Industry Leaders workshop last week hosted by ULA at their Centennial, Colorado campus, and put on by my friends at Advanced Space LLC and the FAA … Continue reading →

Posted in Altius Space Machines, Business, Commercial Space, ISRU, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, MHD Aerobraking and TPS, NASA, NEOs, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Settlement, Space Transportation, SpaceX, Technology, ULA, Variable Gravity | 36 Comments

Summary of Some ULA Papers from AIAA SPACE 2015

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Jonathan Goff

ULA has often used the AIAA SPACE conferences as a venue for discussing technical ideas they were working on. In fact, I’ve written several blog posts over the years summarizing or commenting on previous versions of their papers. This year’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, Orbital Access Methodologies, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, SpaceX, ULA | 19 Comments