Main Engine Cut Off

SpaceX officially announced their first Red Dragon mission to Mars, which will pave the way for future missions. They also posted new performance metrics for Falcon 9 and Heavy, which position the launch vehicles very differently in the market. And a brief discussion of the potential political fallout over the OA-6 launch anomaly. By the Numbers: How close Atlas V came to Failure in this Week’s Cygnus Launch – Cygnus OA-6 | Spaceflight101 OA-6: Atlas V booster shortcomings due to MRCV anomaly | NASASpaceFlight.com Mixture ratio valve the culprit in Atlas 5 anomaly, next launch this summer – Spaceflight Now HASC doubles Air Force allotment of RD-180 engines, focuses funding on building its replacement - SpaceNews.com Capabilities & Services | SpaceX SpaceX's new price chart illustrates performance cost of reusability - SpaceNews.com SpaceX plans to debut Red Dragon with 2018 Mars mission | NASASpaceFlight.com Can SpaceX really land on Mars? Absolutely, says an engineer who would know | Ars Technica NASA T