Main Engine Cut Off - T+156: Sean Mahoney, CEO of Masten Space Systems

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

Sean Mahoney, CEO of Masten Space Systems joins me to talk about everything they’ve been up to lately, from flights of their terrestrial vehicles out in Mojave, NASA’s Lunar CATALYST program, their recent Commercial Lunar Payload Services task order award, and some other projects like DARPA’s XS-1, the Broadsword engine, and XEUS.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 37 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, John, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant, David, Mints, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Adam, and six anonymous—and 361 other supporters.TopicsMasten Space SystemsMasten Space Systems (@mastenspace) / Twittermastenspace - YouTubeWhats the Point? — Masten Space SystemsLunar CATALYST | NASAXL-1 — Masten Space SystemsNASA Awards Contract to Deliver Science, Tech to Moon | NASAMasten Space Systems Will Deliver NASA and Commercial Payloads to the Lunar Surface in 2022 — Masten Space SystemsMasten Space Systems selected by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for XS-1 Program — Masten Space SystemsMasten Achieves First Hot-Fire of Broadsword Rocket Engine — Masten Space SystemsXEUS — Masten Space SystemsThe ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] @WeHaveMECOListen to MECO HeadlinesJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterBuy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off ShopMusic by Max Justus

Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cutoff. I'm Anthony Colangelo and we've got yet another special guest with us today. It's been a good time for interviews with everybody at home during the pandemic. So I've been taking advantage. And today we've got Sean Mahoney, CEO of Masten Space Systems. They are an incredibly interesting company who have been operating out in Mojave for years, flying terrestrial test beds. You might have seen some of their videos because they've got incredible videos of these things taken off and landing. They are reusable rockets that are used to fly here at Earth to test all sorts of different payloads. I'm sure we'll be talking a whole bunch about it with Sean. But they recently won a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services Task Award.

The third award that went out was to Masten. So they'll be flying to the moon, taking a collection of payloads, both NASA, other payload providers, and potentially even selling some as well to people outside of the CLPS program itself. So we're going to talk all sorts about Mastin's day-to-day. We're going to talk about that CLPS award and maybe some of the things that we're going to see in the future. So without further ado, let's talk to Sean. All right, well, Sean, thank you so much for joining me on Main Engine Cutoff.

Welcome to the show. Thank you. Glad to be here. You've got some big news that had come out recently that you have won a task order for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services. So that's what prompted me to email. But Masten itself has been on my list for a long time for guests on the show. So I'm really excited to talk about all things Masten today. That's awesome.

Glad to be on the list. Glad to be on a good list. And really appreciate not only your interest, but there's a lot of folks in this industry that have had a decent interest in what Mastin's been doing and been supporting us one way or another for years. So glad to be able to come in and pull back the curtain a little bit and show you what we've been up to. Yeah, I would love to start a little higher level before we get into the clip stuff. Just to hear what Masten has been up to over the last few years, because there's people that hawk SpaceX webcasts and things like that, and we're getting updates from them on those webcasts every once in a while. And there's other companies that are putting out a lot of Twitter PR and things like that. But there are these quieter companies that are very busy, but we don't get a ton of insight into what day-to-day life is like at Masten. So I'd love to hear a little bit about what kind of projects you've been working on over the last couple of years out in Mojave. Well, yes. And first of all,

yes, we have been intentionally a little bit more quiet. And that is, it's unfortunate, but it has actually enabled us to focus a little bit more on the critical things that are necessary for us to not only stay alive, but to thrive. So yeah, I know there's a bunch of cool stuff and we have a tendency not to talk as much. We really adopted a mindset of, well, I will edit this down for more public consumption, but stop talking and do. And so one of the things that we did is we kind of pulled down the lofty rhetoric about what it is we were working on and instead focused on sharing things we had accomplished. Because, you know, there's a there's a lot of folks that are talking about high rhetoric. because there's a lot of folks that are talking about high rhetoric. And what we really wanted to focus on is how do you convert that theory into practice? How do you take the aspirations into reality?

How do you get to the moon in a way that actually will work? And so those have been the things that we've been working on for many years. Some folks, some of your listeners may be familiar with the name that popped up, and when it first popped up on my radar, actually, was when the team was competing for the NASA Centennial Challenge, the Lunar Lander Challenge, the Northrop Grumman NASA Centennial XPRIZE Challenge back in 2000. You've got a name. Yeah.

I think I got them all. 2008, 2009 timeframe. And I actually joined the company. I watched Dave and the team compete for that on a friend's laptop in a cafe thinking, wow, this is really cool. At the time, it had not occurred to me that I would be working in the space field, much less leading a space company. But since that time, over a decade ago, time over a decade ago the company has been developing the the broad set of things that'll be necessary to unlock the moon and it's it's it starts with the the relationships and the partnerships with the people who are not just thinking big things, but doing things. The people that are in this industry

that are not afraid to get out of the lab, to get things done and to try to mature, you know, technologies and business plans. So that's where our focus has been. And obviously supporting that is the technology that goes along with it. So from the most basic piece that folks are probably familiar with, our terrestrial vehicles that demonstrated the necessary

core functionality to land on the moon and then be refueled and take back off to lunar orbit, be refueled and take back off to lunar orbit. We flew, those profiles were 50 meters by 50 meters and those same vehicles and capabilities were then expanded to fly half a kilometer high and almost a full kilometer down range, not just because it's cool, but because it helps work with actual technology that's being developed to serve other things. And so that's a lot of what we've been doing is working on maturing both the relationships and the partnerships, but also the technologies that will be appropriate and needed when the market for the moon finally arrives. Yeah, I think that kind of focus is why, from where I'm sitting here, Mastin has always

had this kind of mystical feeling to it. Everyone's like, wow, look at this company out in Mojave building all these crazy looking vehicles and flying them. Those were from the early days when people were starting to get into the idea of new space. That was always one of the things that people look at and say, like, these vehicles look incredible. And I think it's interesting to see as landers become the main focus of the industry, both from like orbital stages to now we're talking about all sorts of different lunar landers, how Masten is positioned to have all the different test beds that you can use to

fly sensors and things like that, but also, you know, to develop your own technology. Do you feel like that is, is there any kind of push and pull between developing test beds to help others versus building your own vehicles for their own uses? Or do you feel like those are really complementary? They absolutely are complementary. And there is a tremendous tension between those two things. Absolutely. And this is one of those distinctions that is really important in a small company, period. The distinction between, okay,

what are we doing to create value for someone else? And let me translate, create value means earn money versus giving expression of the big ideas that you want to do. And Mastin, while we have absolutely benefited from individuals putting money to work in the company we are not um we're not backed by a billionaire we're focused on creating value and building the company based on that value. So it's, yeah, you might call it bootstrapping.

You might call it customer strapping. But it's been, it is absolutely a tension. And it's a tension that has, it's boiled up once or twice of, all right, yeah, great that we got another contract. But, you know, when are we going to be able to do X, Y, or Z? And the answer is, well, we'll keep working on it. And when there's a customer for it, then we'll get a chance to do it. Yeah, that's kind of the interesting spot the industry is at, is that there are a small handful of companies that have the resources to just say, this is our vision, we're going for that. Any side effects, we can work that into our platform if it works. But if

not, that's not interesting to us and we're going to keep pushing on. And then there's others like yourself, even the early days of SpaceX to some extent, if you go back that far, that have a general mission, but they need to find these customers to do it. And you've got to find ways to find other partners that are on the same path that get you where you're going, get them where they're going. And it's messy for sure. But I think it feels like it's, you're kind of on the verge here of hitting maybe peak of Mastin where,

where you've got all this technology behind you and you've got customers that are now interested in Landers to an extreme. But I don't know if that is that vibe, something that you're feeling as a company. It is. We have definitely come upon a peak. And as anyone who has gotten a major kind of contract can attest to, like the the joy and enthusiasm of being selected is then you know you feel like all right you made it to the mountaintop and then you realize you're at the hilltop and while you have made it up you can now see a little bit further and realize the size of the mountain that you still have yet to climb so um it it is absolutely a a a moment in time for Mastin that we have been, you know, we've had our shoulder to the wheel for so long.

And there's so many things that we've pursued that haven't come to pass. And, you know, we'd make a little bit of progress and then things would retrench or some market force would change. And so this year, honestly, starting this year, we were just about kind of at the, back to a good run rate where we felt like things were starting to come together. We had the right sort of interest from different parts.

Different partners had interest in continuing work with us or adding new work, and things were coming together. And then, yeah, obviously we've been one of of the clips companies since day one but we didn't know when when would that arrive uh and so for that to have uh come in on this most recent assortment of instruments um under their their term the 19C suite of instruments. We're obviously thrilled about that. That helps step that up. And then you've also seen right along with that

several other things that have started to click as well. So yeah, it really has been after years of austerity and times where we weren't entirely sure how we were going to make it through. We have persevered and it's great to see some of this stuff coming in now. And let me just say in the context of as we're having this conversation, fully aware that the rest of the world is experiencing some, you know, real shock to the system. And I can absolutely sympathize and empathize with that because we've, you know, we've been through some of those large shocks to the system. And, you know, while we're very glad to see some things coming together for us, I certainly don't mean to in any way diminish the struggles that others are going through. their supply chain and the companies they work with. Do you feel like any specific effects of

the pandemic situation on Mastin or because of the nature of the way Mastin works, do you feel a little insulated from that? It's funny, you know, being located in the high desert, isolated and with a small team for years was a negative and all of a sudden it became a positive. for years was a negative and all of a sudden it became a positive. We were fortunate that where it hit in sort of our cycle wasn't, it didn't immediately have a major impact. We have had some of our flight operations that have had to shift out because we're, you know, we, we went pretty much to all virtual work. We've had plenty of work to do.

And so I think we're going to be in pretty good shape in terms of working our way through. We were able to provide room for all the team members to not only not you know expose themselves but they're even able to have some team members get themselves stranded with a fiance or something like that so that was that was and brings a little bit of a smile to my face though at least in the difficulty we were able to help folks get to a good place. And I think it has the odd effect of it actually brought us a little bit closer as a team because we've instituted like a daily kind of water cooler sort of thing. And so it has driven our schedule around that. And

you know, that I think we're both the business is going to do okay and people are going to do okay coming through this knock on knock on wood there's still more things to cascade through um and obviously if this continues for an extreme period of time we'll it's kind of hard to fabricate at a distance but um there's some stuff that we were certainly able to do. So. So I'd love to hear a little bit before we dive into some of the bigger programs that you've been working on. I'd love to hear a little bit about who the typical customer is for Mastin. I can, you know, I could, I can, and everyone listening can probably think of a couple of things that would be really good fits for what Mastin is flying on a day-to-day basis. But, you know,

it would be really good fits for what Mastin is flying on a day-to-day basis. But from your perspective, what is it that makes a good Mastin customer? And could you give us some examples of that? Sure. So the simplest answer is someone that is willing to take action before absolute certainty that it's going to work. And that may seem like that's a big step, but the partners that we have worked with come from, it's anything from the folks at Draper and JPL who, you know, hold so many records and are such developed organizations to,

you know, fellow new space companies to student groups. As long as they have the approach of let's figure out how to iterate through and get things done those are the people that we like to partner with and and I'm intentionally talking about partnering because it really isn't one one group will be contracted to the other so there's some relationship in that way but it's all it's all about the partnership because this is a space space is big but the space community is tiny so people across yeah yeah and so you know folks that are that are that want to work with us who want to come out to mojave and say, all right, we've talked through

the major things. We think we've got an idea. Let's come out and get it done. Let's come out and hook this up and see where the problems are and troubleshoot it and get it solved and move forward. Those are the types of folks that really have done well with us. And it's worth also, in case there's anyone who's listening that isn't familiar with this, there's actually multiple partners on any one of these sorts of things. You have not only the technology partners, and if you look at it from, let's say, Masten free-flying rocket vehicle and take Honeybee Robotics,

for an example, their PlanetVac system. Great. Well, so we've got two different technologies that can work together, but that's still not the partnership. That's two pieces of it. The work that we had done with Honeybee also required the funding partnerships. And so NASA's Flight Opportunities Program was able to bring dollars in to encourage and facilitate that. And then for the program that we did a couple of years ago, the Planetary Society came in to bring support from a community of folks that are interested in more community-based support of the space industry. And so that partnership isn't just wires and plumbing and nuts and bolts. It is the strategic and financial support that is required in any of these

sort of things. So just in case anyone's thinking, Oh, it's just, you know, just one and two. No, there's a whole lot of pieces you got to get working to make these things

work. And one of the ones that I always love thinking about is you have this abort system on, on some of the vehicles that somebody could take over guidance, navigation, control of your vehicle. And then you've got this abort system that's always watching that, you know, I took a helicopter lesson once and it was like, here, fly the helicopter for a little bit, but the guy's still sitting there ready to take over if I start tipping over too much. That's, does that feel like a thing that, you know, is that like an only

Mastin kind of thing? Or, um, do you just feel like you're the first that, that kind of integrated in a way where you're giving full control over to a vehicle, uh, to another system, you know, of the vehicle itself? Yes. So, and that's the concept itself, and you just articulated it in the form of a driver, driving instructor or flying instructor. The idea of a hypervisor system isn't something that sprang full grown from our heads.

But in terms of how we have implemented it here on a rocket-powered lander is perhaps something that's different. And the question becomes, who else would have the appropriate motivation to want to do such a thing? And if they choose to do it, it can certainly be done. It's just a question of, you know, is will the companies that have some of the big rocket landers, are they willing to let someone else drive their rocket? Are they willing to let someone else drive their rocket? And we are because we, you know, the vehicles that we build, they're not cheap and they're not expendable, but they're not not expendable. Right. So we have to be willing to say, you know what?

Things are going to go wrong. We're going to go out and every day we're going to fly. Every time we fly one of those vehicles, something could go wrong and we could lose them but if we wait until we've eliminated all the risks we'll never do anything and if we don't mitigate the risks at least a little bit we'll just have too many hunks of smoking parts and we won't be able to continue. And so that hypervisor is about us figuring out how to balance those things. And so that is, that's one of the things that we were able to come up with and we built it because we saw, you know,

the other alternative for people who want to test out a guidance navigation control system is to build an entire free-flying test bed and there's not that many of those historically that have been built and we know that they're rather expensive so um you know that that's a thing that we developed to be able to allow other people to use the system and to work together, you know, maturing some of these tools that we may in turn wind up being a customer of, you know, again, it's all, it's a small world. So how do these things map in together? But yeah, it does.

It is kind of neat to have that system so that we have, and for folks who are not necessarily familiar, we have the abort and the terminate. And so by having those two different things, and this is one of those things that a lot of people miss when they think about reusable spacecraft. They think about saving the money on the hunk of metal, but it is so much more than that. It's not just the saving on the cost of the hunk of metal, it's the fact that it is a change in how you go about doing the testing. And so if, for example, your previous life was flying things on sounding rockets,

when you fly on a sounding rocket, what are your outcomes? If it goes well or if it goes poorly, what's next? And if it goes poorly and the answer is, well, then you have to go get back in line and apply again and you're a year or two until you can get your next flight, then you're going to invest an awful lot up front. You're going to spend more money and time because you don't get that opportunity. You're not sure when that next opportunity is going to come. But when it's a reusable vehicle and your next opportunity is refuel it and go again,

it changes the level that you have to have these things developed to, which means you can find the problems, if there are any, faster. Because you can get out of the lab and get out and test these things. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't destroy the vehicle. And if you forgot to turn it on, great. Identify that you forgot to turn it on, update the checklist, we'll refuel and we'll fly it again. And we have done that with a lot of the different customers we have found, they have found together, we have found things that didn't quite work right. But because you have a system that allows you to have that abort,

that, okay, stop what you're doing and land, it really opens up a whole new pace of space development that some folks have definitely seen the value of and are embracing. And I think more and more people are starting to realize that there is a different way to go about developing space technologies and space businesses. Shift in focus to the moon a little bit. Lunar catalyst program was a thing that came about, what was it like five or six years ago or something like that?

A long time ago now that NASA started to develop small landers to go down to the lunar surface. You were a part of it as Mastin, Astrobotic, and Moon Express, I believe, were the three. That's correct. That were part of that program. Knowing, you know, the pace of things now where we're in the era of commercial lunar payload services, it does feel like that was pretty much the direct predecessor to this. I wonder now, looking back, if you can give us a little context on that program and if and how it ties into what Clips is today, if it set it up for success or, you know, if it feels connected, but it absolutely helped grease the skids, if you will, not only for those companies that you mentioned, who were the program leads on this, saw how in order for that to be a way that is likely to happen, we should take the resources and the knowledge that has been amassed by NASA

and make it available to companies that are out there getting stuff done so that they can increase the chance of success the chance of success uh the the maturity of the systems and things like that and uh i i said in the uh as the program wrapped up um i was at first skeptical of the catalyst program because it was a non-reimbursable space act agreement, which basically meant NASA resources are available, but there's no money. And that's great. Luckily, I listened to the team who expressed not only their interest in the knowledge and the engineering development, but also in the strategic applications. And I said, okay, yep, this makes sense.

Let's apply for it. And I am extremely grateful to both the NASA folks and to members of the Masten team that prevailed upon me why that was so important. And there were some things I didn't realize we would find. One of them is that this was not about NASA telling us how to do it. It really was about NASA resources being available to talk things through and we could learn some of the mindset and understand what research and what experience has gone into the approach that NASA uses and they the the different NASA subject matter experts that we worked with were

able to learn why and how our structure, which was a little bit different and sounded like it was completely at odds with the right way to do things, they got to understand from us why we would do things like designing a lander without having the requirements of the payload that was going to go on it. without having the requirements of the payload that was going to go on it. And so it really was, it was, it was great program for us to be involved with. I do wish, I wish I had more resources to put into it to support it while it was,

was going on. But we, and so not only did we have that development of kind of process and technology, And so not only did we have that development of kind of process and technology, but also in partnership and understanding where the things that we're, you know, we might have solved some things that elsewhere in NASA, there was a difficult problem. So that working together and collaboration was extremely important. And I believe, and you'll have to ask some folks at NASA about this, but I believe that that Catalyst program helped to demonstrate that, yes, this is a realistic thing. And that when you're looking at what became the CLPS program, there are companies that can respond to this. Yeah, that definitely, you know, not only with the lunar landing programs, but you look at commercial cargo and crew, it feels like the last 10 years were NASA trying a couple of different approaches and validating that not only do different program structures make sense, but just different ways of approaching it and thinking about these programs.

It's cool to see that happen because, you know, there's a lot of people out there that want to see different changes in the policy of NASA and things like that but when you look at this level of how programs are managed and executed, it's hard to see any of these as heading in the wrong direction especially like you're saying, you had the benefit to develop the landing technology, the XL1 lander that we'll talk about in a minute but also you definitely helped shape the way that NASA was going benefit to develop the landing technology, the XL1 lander that we'll talk about in a minute. But also, you definitely helped shape the way that NASA was going to, you know, architect the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program in terms of how you interact with NASA and maybe payload providers interact with NASA and payload providers interact with you. It feels, I don't

know if you would, do you think that that CLPS would be, it seems like it's going to be pretty successful. I'm putting my eggs in one basket here. Do you feel like, you know, that CLPS could not have happened without Catalyst? Or do you feel like this was inevitable? I think it is inevitable that humans will expand the economic sphere to include the moon. I think that is inevitable. The timing of that is the part that's the question. And from an investment standpoint, the question is, can you stay relevant and at the forefront of the right applied technologies so that when it's the time you're ready and so no I could not have guaranteed I have no idea you know if catalyst hadn't existed would clips exist i don't know it's it could be maybe not i don't know i mean there's it's more than just one thing that led to this

you can definitely point to the catalyst program you can definitely point to the flight opportunities program and the idiq contract structure that that program has had, you can definitely point to commercial cargo delivery to the ISS. Those were all precursor pieces that showed that what CLPS is looking to do is absolutely possible. And not only possible, but it is a likely positive course. Let's dig in a little on Masten's task order that you won here. This is with the XL1 lander. I believe that started work under the Catalyst program, but it does appear, at least in the renders,

to have changed shape and form a little bit. Is there some details you can share about XL1, maybe payload sizes? I did read that NASA is the anchor customer, but you're looking to fill extra payload space, so I'd love to hear a little bit about that as well. Yes, that is correct. The architecture, actually, if you look back to what we submitted into the Catalyst solicitation back in 2013, maybe it was, the idea of having a multi-phase approach, kind of a capability-driven approach, you'll see all the way back there. We focused a lot of our attention in the Catalyst program on primarily on the XL1 system

because well that's the first one you're gonna you're gonna deploy we did have attention to other parts of that overall roadmap through Catalyst so yes it has definitely matured and we have been iterating on this for years. Now, what I can tell you is, no, this is not a brand new design. the squarish outer mold line now has this interesting rounded looking thing that is actually more, it's in response to two things. Number one, the payloads that folks are looking to do are really not interested in being just delivered. These are instruments. They're looking to gain science from the surface. And so the,

you know, we had reserved payload capability in the XL1 design. And then each time we have an actual customer, turns out they probably want something particular. So we had always preserved the option to do a number of different configurations. And this harkens back to our use of zombie. So zombie is that ugly yellow thing that we flew for years. And, you know, it wasn't even the one that was the grand prize winner in the Centennial Challenge. It was the one that was like the precursor. But what we found was that while we had the thing with the fancy arrow shell and it could do more,

people really wanted to use Zombie because it was an open architecture, because we could bolt the thing on and they could get easier access. And so that understanding translated all the way over into our lunar architecture. We knew that the actual benefit of getting to the surface is going to come because of the instruments, not just the transportation. surface is going to come because of the instruments, not just the transportation. And so we didn't know which instruments or what thing would be the big thing, but we knew that it would be something. And so that architecture that you're looking at there, as we had submitted it to NASA's Eclipse task order solicitation, is the one that accommodates the suite of instruments

that we're taking. So it's still a four engine vehicle, deep throttling. The outer mold line looks a little different. And I will leave. There was a simple change that was done. There's one other change kind of under the hood there, which I'll let folks guess at. It's actually a minor change that buys us a little bit of flexibility, but did drive a slight change in just kind of some of the structure.

But overall, this is the same thing that we've been working on for years. Now, the payloads itself, when you receive the task order, NASA is assigning a suite of instruments to fly on, both internal NASA payloads, but also some that won other contracts for payloads themselves. Yeah. Were these all payloads that when you were bidding for this task order, you knew the exact list? Or were there some that were a little softer, like,

oh, you'll have a certain amount of kilograms here and a little bit there? What are the requirements like when you're bidding for these task orders? Yeah, great question. And it is changing. It has changed, as it should as the clips program and the participants are doing this thing that hasn't necessarily been done before we're all kind of iterating so this particular set of instruments 19C is a specified list. And so each of the bidders, each of the companies that are providing delivery service was given a list of these instruments and their requirements and then then would propose a solution that would address those needs.

The first version under what's referred to as Task Order 2, those were, hey, here's a whole list of instruments. Tell us what you would like to take. And then there's another solicitation that is in review right now, which is one NASA rover. That's the Viper rover. So that one is very explicit and has a decent amount more kind of requirements to it. There will be another one probably coming up in the near future that will be another collection and then in the next kind of version of the payload solicitation is going to go through a different system entirely called prism and there is a solicit I think a solicitation on that is already out. And that is basically a PI will propose a suite of instruments to fly. And so that's a different approach. And the good news is because it's an IDIQ contract,

the NASA management team can respond to the needs as they develop. So does that answer your question? Absolutely. Yeah, no, it's good to just have, you know, insight into how this kind of stuff works because it's easy for us to look at the pretty pictures and read the headlines, but it's a whole nother thing to be coordinating all this. And I think that's, that's the curious part is you've got a certain amount of payload margin on

XL1. And then you, in one of the articles I was reading, and maybe even in your blog post, you mentioned that there is some payload space available for other customers. What would that process be like to go out and sell lunar missions, especially when, I'm particularly curious about, people that want to fly payloads, they might be going to NASA to try to get on one of these later flights. So how do you approach customers to try to sell them on this flight right now? Yeah. So I don't think you can actually

sell a trip to the moon in the same way you might go out and sell someone a new car over the weekend. It is absolutely about developing the right sort of, it's a consultative process. It's about working together and figuring out, okay, what do you need? What do I need? And how can we address somebody else's need? And how do we map this in? So we're not out selling so much as we are out trying to figure out where are those other partners, who are the people that are doing things today and how can we get them involved in the missions that we're, you know, the delivery that we're doing and the, you know,

the systems that we are taking, because this is one of the big things is that for good or for ill, an awful lot of aerospace is somewhat sectional. You'll have, you know, a scientist who will develop an instrument because they can't get the science any other way. So they become developers of instruments, not because they want become developers of instruments not because they want to develop instruments but because they can't get the data another way but even that instrument is not a full solution that is only a piece right so that has to then plug into something else that has to plug into something else that has to work on a system that has to get launched and so one of the

things that we've been doing is if nasa does this already but we've been able to kind of do it from a different approach of all right let's get the list of capabilities together and when someone says oh yeah I'd love to go to the moon but I don't have a way to get enough power or I don't have enough I don't have a way to stay warm I don't have a way to stay cold or whatever it is we've got a list of potential partners across the industry that we could say yeah okay got it if we could take care of your you know lunar night solution then what okay good so now we can find those solutions so

that's a lot of what the sales effort is, is trying to figure out what's in the way of the science, what's in the way of the business plan, what's in the way of these great futures, and then how do we piece the things together to solve it. it definitely changed you know a couple weeks ago when it went from the great masters a partner we can develop things with and will mature systems to okay nope now we're going and there's a date and there's a seat available so it definitely flips some things that way so in terms of you know, what's it like selling? It's, it's exciting. It is not nearly as straightforward as Okay, well, here's the price. I haven't. I don't think we're quite there yet. That's fair enough. It's not a drop your business card in when a free flight to the moon. Not yet. But there there is. There so much. There's an awful lot of potential in this. So and we are seeing and yes, we do have capability.

We do have it was not a misprint. We have hundreds of kilograms available on our 2022 mission. Hundreds is a lot. What's the total payload space for XL1? You know, that's an excellent question. And you're not the first person to ask it. I will point out that anyone who has said, well, you said before that you can carry payloads up to 100 kilograms. And I will say, yes, I can. And I still can. And I didn't say that was the maximum I could take. I just said, I'm going to take payloads up to 100 kilograms. So why would I not be telling you exactly how much I can carry?

Because, I mean, because I want to. There's, because reasons. I mean, because I want to. Because reasons. And as we get, there'll be some more information coming out about the design, about the architecture. To date, there are zero payloads, zero payloads, over 100 kilograms that have gone to the surface of the moon that we've lost out on. That's a fair statement. It's right. lost out on. That's a fair statement. It's right. You know what?

Totally is a fair statement. With other task orders in mind, that's definitely curious to think about. Yeah. And I'm being intentionally slightly vague here. No, I get it. I get it. But yeah, we can take some relatively large stuff. And let me just kind of... Since you mentioned there's some folks that are listening to this in a competitive and strategic context, we, Masten had the benefit of not being, not responding to some of the drivers that were in the marketplace over the last decade we said well there is certainly interest in the extending the cubesat idea to the moon

right make them really small and really cheap and nearly throw away right cubes? CubeSats are nearly, I mean, it's still millions of dollars, but still nearly throw away. We looked at that and we, you know, literally had meetings, sat down, discussed it, argued about it and said, we don't see that CubeSat architecture carrying all the way to the surface of the moon that when there are market, when there is payload going, it's gotta be bigger. And so that drove our design all the way back into, you know,

11, 12, 13 timeframe to say, we're going to focus on a, instead of trying to make it the total price as low as possible. We're going to make an efficient delivery service that will be able to carry the real sorts of payloads that are going to need to go. One thing I'm curious about, maybe the last clips topic I've got for you, you are, you know, this has never been done for as we keep talking about, but you are the third task order winner of this program. And I'm curious, as you make your way closer to the launch pad for all three of you, is there any crossover between the teams working on these things when one of you encounters a problem that is not specific to that company or the architecture, but is specific to the way that this workflow happens? Is there crossover or

is it even allowed between you and astrobotic and intuitive machines to help make it all easier for yourselves and yourselves in the future? So the good news is the CLIPS program is set up such that NASA's buying delivery of a thing, and then it's pretty much on us to do whatever we need to do um so there's not NASA does not have a heavy hand in this and doesn't tell us what much does not tell us what we have to do or can't do or any of that kind of stuff um there absolutely is competition because we all want to be the one that's, you know, giving expression to the designs and the architectures we've been working for

years. So absolutely. The flip side of that is it's a small world and there is definitely collegiality. definitely collegiality. We had talked to any and all of the different companies about how can we work together and how can we partner to mature a system that maybe we can share on these parts and whether others are doing this or not, I can't tell you until you mastin has been we're not you know we several years ago we did a flight campaign with the astrobotic team we flew with Draper the so if you look at the various companies that are in this larger world we've been working and we work in regulatory issues with Moon Express over the years so you've seen a lot of the the same players and we do work together in some cases and we you know are still in competition in others

and and I'll say I didn't have checklist, but I will say that when the, and when people found out about the selection for 19C, I received nothing but heartfelt congratulations from even some of these competitors that I know it's never it's, it's never fun to not win, but it was, it was great to see the support of, you know, some of these other folks and we will probably see ways to continue to work together. We're, I am looking to find ways to take the, you know, the best out of any of these companies, whether they're CLIPS providers or not, and find ways to help really unlock the value of the moon. So what does the roadmap for Mastin look like from here, both CLIPS and non-CLIPS alike?

Does this award change Mastin look like from here both clips and and non-clips alike does this award change Mastin's future trajectory do you feel like it solidifies something you already had in mind what does that look like for you this is not a change in direction it's a change in velocity it's an inflection point between here's the plan for when it's real to okay we're real we're going so and this has been you know one of the questions that we had after oh wow this is great okay we've got we're gonna do all this stuff we said we were gonna do now what about everything else and so we did take a look and say okay well there's a lot of other things that we're doing. And the answer is those are those other things, those other, you know, whether it's a

NIAAC, you know, the early stage slash crazy idea program that NASA has there or flight opportunities work or SBIRs or other development stuff. Do you do those things? And the answer is yes, you do those things because those are still developing other capabilities so that we continue to pursue those things and we continue to be at the forefront of the applied in-space technology. We're continuing to work with the people who are the doers. If you look at the list of not only Clips vendors,

but Clips instruments, you'll notice several of those are things that got their TRL advancement working with mastin so you know we want to continue to do that and want to continue to help the next set of instruments the next set of um you know business models and so yeah it's it is it's really that change in velocity um you know we're not just landing on Earth now. We're going to be landing the Moon and throughout the solar system

as there is a market and a driver to do it. There are some other programs that Masten had been involved with, one of which I was particularly bummed about how it panned out overall, which was XS-1, the DARPA project. Related to that was the Broad Sword engine, which is a methane locks engine that Masten developed. I'd love to hear what's up with BroadSword. This is the era of methane engines that we're

entering here. So how does that feel? It was part of the XS1 program, I believe, but obviously has a lot of applications outside of that. So how does that fit into Mastin's future? It does. So the BronzeSword engine, you're absolutely right, did start out as a solution in that reusable space plane project at DARPA. Essentially what we're talking about, for those not familiar, it's an additively manufactured aluminum metal matrix composite engine, LOX methane, about 25,000 pound thrust. the need from that DARPA program to have an engine that can not only, you know, meet the fly power vehicle to fly 10 times in 10 days, but also an engine that can essentially be gas and go. And so realizing that that's a different design point, we designed this engine.

And coming out of that, NASA's STMD, the Space Technology Mission Directory, saw not only that engine and where it will be able to potentially power some other applications, other applications, but also the underlying technology that we're kind of extracting from theory into practice. And so that's why the engine was picked up to be further developed under the STMD program. So where does that put us? Well, that puts us now having, and we had some internal debates over, you know, the superlative game of, was this the largest additively manufactured engine? Or to a certain degree, it does not matter. Like, I get it. How many adjectives can you jam in? Right.

But, you know, it's 25,000 pound additively manufactured aluminum engine. And that's that's not nothing. And we have we have been able to do some things. I've often said the the textbook for additive manufacturing for space has not yet been written. for space has not yet been written. We're still, we, industry, are still figuring this out. And different people are working different areas of it. And we're very fortunate to be looking at the propulsion applications. We actually hit an issue at one point that no one could actually solve.

And we went to all of the, all of experts and like no one had an answer for it. And you know, it may be, it's the sort of thing that could be someone's PhD paper at some point, maybe in the future, we found the solution. We found a solution for the problem, but like,

you know, it was a thing that we were literally at the very forefront of the technology. So what does that do for us? 25,000 pound engine is a bit big for the lunar delivery system, but I mean, you didn't give me a payload number. I did.

I did not. That's true. But that is still definitely a bit larger than what we're looking at right now. But what that does do is the knowledge and the process knowledge on the additive, some of the material science, some of the additive processes that we have. processes that have come out of that program overall that have been really interesting and could have a major impact on additive propulsion systems in the future. So it definitely is relevant. And look, I appreciate folks feeling bad for us not getting selected to build the, you know, the XS1 vehicle. I feel bad too.

But we, we put everything we had into that proposal and into that program. We came out of that program proving that we could do it. And that was, you know, our competition was not against another company. It was against ourselves and against, you know, can we actually do it? And we answered that question of yes. And by we, I mean, in evaluation, we were told, yes, despite our doubts, we think you can do this. So that was excellent.

And we learned and we grew as a team. And we've learned both good and bad lessons out of it. So the children of XS1 are going to continue. That's the broadsword engine, some of the other things that have come out of that. going to continue you know that's the broadsword engine some of the other things that have come out of that and frankly the fact that we know better now how to serve our our customers going to the moon uh because of that darpa experience hopefully all of that is is going to pay off the one thing i would be remiss to not mention, and I would probably have a bunch of people mad at me for not mentioning, is Zeus. Which is, I personally love this concept here.

I just want to know that Zeus is not dead overall. But I know there's a lot of things tied to Zeus itself. That it's a centaur-based landing system that would have a couple of engines pointed perpendicular to what you would think the thrust is pointed at. So you would use the RL-10 part of the way down and then use the smaller engines for actual landing. Interestingly, Broadsword does map kind of closely to the RL-10 thrust size. It does. So that's pretty curious. So how do all these pieces come together? It's still listed on your website. Is this something that we should have some hope in for the future? Yes, you should absolutely have some hope in for the future. It is much like I said, you know,

at some point in the future, the moon will be part of our economic sphere of influence. At some point in the future, you will see that tugboat type architecture exist. And I, Mastin would love to be able to provide that whether or not that happens or not i can't tell you it is not dead uh and so for folks who have been following this um it is dual thrust access lander is the generic or the the term art. So it is a secondary system that allows you to, you know, land a big thing on the surface of the moon. And it fits the architecture that we have been developing. So we have mapped in the things that we are trying to do

in terms of the technology development and things like that. We have mapped in all of the various component technologies to be able to be at a point where we have a variable system that can be retrofitted to surround a given thing and bring it to the surface. And Zeus is kind of that great merging of a longer-term goal and an immediate... That's a fine piece of space hardware right there that exists and you know is I won't say that

they're free for the taking I will say that you know upper stages once they have served their purpose what are they doing well great can we repurpose that somehow and so we've been very fortunate to work with the folks at ULA who have supported us in saying hey well what if, what if we, you know, landed one of these things? And so that's been a, it's been great because if you may not notice, Mastin and ULA are a little different in size. Just a bit, yeah.

Just a bit. But, you know, we've been able to say, hey, it's a little bit crazy, but can you help us work with this idea? And they said, sure, we can help you work with the idea. You know, it's our thing to figure out how to make it work. But they would be more than happy to, you know, help support a customer who wanted to buy and have one of these things delivered to them. So it's not it is certainly not dead uh it comes back to the big question of when yeah and it does map into you know what we started out the conversation talking about mastin's methodology of of not it's not being

backed by billionaires or whatever not being able to extend out to whatever your fantasy project is but following that customer lead and and figuring out what you're trying to do and what they're trying to do and getting there. So it feels like an obvious extension to me. If you have an interest in taking one and a half metric tons to the surface, let's talk. And that becomes the question, all right, well, what crazy business idea is out there that would require it, that would support it? The good news is, if you have a crazy business idea that's built on,

okay, well, I need to be able to take large payloads to the surface, your business plan is less crazy today than it was before. Music to my ears and many others out there. So, Sean, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure talking with you and talking all about Mastin stuff. I'm hoping that we can have people from the Mastin team back on as you get closer to the launchpad. Absolutely. And let me just say again, thank you for your interest and everyone for the interest in what Mastin's been doing and the support and working with us. It has been great to be supported by this, by the industry and by the space enthusiasts all over. It really does mean

the world to us. Thanks again to Sean for coming on the show and talking all about Mastin. It's a pleasure talking with him. And Mastin, as we talked about, is just a company that I love following for all these years. So it's cool to see them have such a big program on their plate now. And hopefully we can follow along as they get closer to the launch pad. It sounds like we'll be getting some more info soon. So I'll keep my eyes peeled for that. But I could not do these kind of things without your support out there. MainEngineCutoff.com slash support.

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