This update is about the engineering console: it now works out what a launch will cost, its answers are easier to read, and it works properly on a phone.
What a launch will cost, calculated from your question. Ask “how much does it cost to launch a 6U CubeSat of 12 kg to SSO, all costs included” and the console answers with a range and where each end comes from. For that satellite it is $84,000 to $350,000 on a rideshare: the low end is an aggregator sharing the plate at the published SpaceX rate of $7,000 per kilogram, the high end is the 50 kg minimum ticket if you fly alone. For comparison it shows a dedicated small launcher and a rideshare with an orbital transfer vehicle. Then it lists what comes on top of the launch fee: the separation system, integration, test and campaign for a CubeSat, the FCC licence for a US operator, and insurance.
- Sourced. Every figure links to where it comes from. Where no price is published — the separation system, insurance — the console says so instead of estimating.
- Repeatable. The arithmetic is done by rules, not by a language model, so the same question always gives the same numbers.
- Your mission. Mass and orbit are taken from the question; if they are not there, from My mission, which now has a launch-mass field.
Answers read as one document. Each answer now sits on the page without a frame. Above every question a thin line shows its number, who answered — the AI agent or the rules engine — how long it took and how many sources were used. The tools under an answer — useful, wrong, link, print — are icons with labels. The start page uses the full width, with four example questions in a row.
The console on a phone. It now works on screens from 320 px wide:
- Specification tables read row by row — the name, the value with its source, then the condition — instead of squeezed columns that split words.
- In a comparison each characteristic is a heading with the products’ values side by side. Product cards under the comparison and sections of datasheet digests fold away and open with a tap, so comparing two reaction wheels takes about half the scrolling it used to.
- Selection guides, launch windows and fit checks read as label–value rows; long lists show the first items and a “Show all” button.
- Buttons and captions are sized for fingers, and the header fits the narrowest screens.
Open the console — on a phone, too.