cookingwong

Four 7-metre solar array wings, built by Airbus, are the ultimate power source for the Orion spacecraft propelling the Artemis mission to the Moon. Capturing the Sun's light in space, they provide the electricity needed to run every system on board, from flight computers to life support. 💡Each wing rotates on two axes to track the Sun perfectly, ensuring maximum energy production. Learn more in this @esaspaceflight article: blogs.esa.int/orion/2025/03/…

TBPN has been acquired by OpenAI! The show is staying the same and we’ll continue to go live at 11am pacific every weekday. This is a full circle moment for me as I’ve worked with @sama for well over a decade. He funded my first company in 2013. Then helped us fix a serious logjam during a critical funding round a few years later. When I took my second company through YC, he was president at the time, and then when I joined Founders Fund, the first deal I saw in motion was the post-ChatGPT round in late 2022. And as we started growing TBPN last year, he was the very first lab lead to join the show. Thank you to everyone that has been a part of TBPN until now. The last year has been the most fun and rewarding part of my career and we’re excited to have more resources than ever going forward.

In my opinion, there are too many companies/startups aiming to sell services to manufacturers, and not enough people starting new manufacturers. Have many friends in the services space, and there are many great ones. Not against them. But we need more modern shops, not another SaaS product that will drain profit and be 40% utilized because it’s an off the shelf product not form fit to the business’s operations. Watching what my boy @zanehengsperger is doing, what @ThaaatColin, @kaiarhodes and @MatthewChang, @Russell_MFG_USA and so many others are building, and can’t help but feel like that is the way. The factory should be the product.

Happening Now: ➡️Protest opposing 25-story Marina Safeway Development proposal. Last week, SF Planning Dept deemed eligibility of AB 2011 approval, fast-rtacking design review. Fight back by signing the petition that will be emailed to City Hall today form.jotform.com/253625476102151

I'm excited to announce we have achieved our Tier 1 mission success criteria and have begun gathering a tremendous amount of data on how this brand new spacecraft performs. On March 30th, 13:17:08Z, the Gravitas spacecraft separated from the SpaceX Transporter-16 stack to begin its mission as one of the highest power free-flying satellites ever launched. Immediately after separation, the spacecraft autonomously: - Executed detumbling maneuvers - Established two-way communications with the ground (on our very first ground station pass) - Deployed its 20kW solar arrays - Slewed to a safe and stable attitude to await further ground commands These actions alone are a testament to the incredible work of our in-house engineering, software, and GNC teams to build a robust spacecraft. Since then, our operations team completed all initial system activations and checkouts, confirming the vehicle is in a power positive and thermally stable state with no major anomalies observed at this time. We completed this phase of the mission ahead of schedule. Next up we will be powering up and downlinking data for all payloads aboard the Gravitas spacecraft in support of our customers and partners while continuing to put the spacecraft through its paces. As we noted ahead of launch: The goal of this mission is to experiment and push our systems to the limit to inform future missions. I look forward to sharing more on our successes and challenges as the mission proceeds. Video of our satellite below; link to full T-16 webcast: x.com/SpaceX/status/…