It's difficult to measure space, because it starts somewhere above 50 miles if you're in the US or 100 kilometers elsewhere.
Low Earth orbit is an altitude between 100 and 1000 miles above Earth.
There are thousands of objects whizzing around up there at speeds above 17,500 miles per hour.
So it's quite an amazing feat to rendezvous with just one of those objects in that vast arena.
I've got a question for you though, Maria.
Uh-oh.
Why don't people like to talk about the mysterious space in the universe?
I don't know, Alice.
Why don't they?
It's a dark matter.
See, swinging a miss on my part.
Swinging a miss.
I knew it was a dark matter joke.
Ah!
T minus. 20 seconds to alloy.
Today is April 26, 2024.
I'm Maria Varmasas.
I'm Alice Karuth and this is T minus.
Astroscale's address J nears its targeted space debris.
Starliner's CST 100 gets the green light.
Turenomaly makes cuts to his workforce.
And our guest today is Matthew Cosby, director of space engineering at Goonhealy Earth Station.
Matt spoke to Maria about the need for lunar and deep space communication support, so stick around for that chat later in the show.
Happy Friday, everybody.
The internet adage, Pixar didn't happen, has been kicking around for a while.
And today, Astroscale really threw the gauntlet down with this one, or at least when it comes to space debris, by posting a picture taken from its active debris removal demo satellite, the address J.
That photo was a mere few hundred meters behind its target, the upper stage of a Japanese rocket body.
This address J demo mission is to demonstrate rendezvous and proximity operations around this chunk of debris.
In other words, get close to it, take pictures of it, assess its condition, and see how it's moving.
And getting within a few hundred meters of a target in space terms is pretty darn close, indeed.
Astroscale is understandably proud, because that photo that they took is also the first public, anyway, photo of space debris from a rendezvous and proximity operations mission.
Still, congratulations to Astroscale on their achievement.
It's no wonder then that Astroscale also announced that they've been picked by JAXA as the commercial partner for JAXA's Phase 2 of its Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration, or CRD2 program.
By the way, Astroscale's address J demonstration was Phase 1 of this program, so this second phase is the next logical step, actually removing the debris.
That mission's spacecraft will be the address J2, and will use a robotic arm to remove and deorbit the debris.
Pretty cool stuff.
Now, iSpace Technologies US is launching a new data relay service enabled by two relay satellites that are expected to be deployed during iSpace US's mission 3, scheduled in 2026.
The two lunar relay satellites are expected to enable communications to and from the Earth, and the Apex 1.0 lunar lander, which is planning to land on the lunar far side near the Moon's South Pole.
The lander is designed to support the draper-led Commercial Lunar Payload Services Task Order CP-12 by delivering and operating NASA payloads to the lunar surface for scientific investigations.
The relay satellites will be deployed into lunar orbit by the Apex 1.0 lunar lander prior to landing.
Three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-18 spaceship have entered the country's Tiangong space station and met with the Shenzhou-17 crew, starting a new in-orbit crew handover.
The automated rendezvous and docking process lasted for about six and a half hours.
According to the China Manned Space Agency.
This is the fourth in-orbit crew rotation on the China space station.
According to the CMSA, the six astronauts will live and work together for about five days to complete planned tasks and handover work.
And they're not the only crew that's getting ready to go up into space.
Boeing and NASA are proceeding with plans for the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft's first crew flight test.
This follows a flight test readiness review.
The mission will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams to the International Space Station.
The astronauts arrived at the Kennedy Space Center yesterday in style, flying into KSC in T-38 jets ahead of their basic launch.
Aside from being the first humans to fly on Starliner, the astronauts, who are both former US Navy test pilots, will also be the first people to ride on board the United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket.
The astronauts answered questions about the upcoming mission and more specifically several questions regarding the Boeing spacecraft.
This was the response from Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams.
Why do we think it's as safe as possible?
We wouldn't be standing here if we didn't.
They wouldn't be standing here if we didn't.
One thing I've heard from these two guys on the right, timing again, I mean timing again, we will not fly until we're ready.
And that's from the top.
These are the top right here from the top down.
They've said that multiple times and we've had a few delays because we weren't ready.
You know, flying in space is hard.
It's really hard.
It's something that I think NASA and the team coming together, we make it look easy for the general public in general because you see the launch go and everything seems to work out well.
You might have a anomaly little thing here or there, but it is not easy to do what we do.
It is not easy to make sure that the metallurgy and the rocket engines is correct.
That all the various bolts and everything are torqued down to the right setting.
It's not easy to do all those things.
There are literally a thousand events that are taking place simultaneously as you step up and get prepared to launch and during the launch sequence and then the spacecraft itself won't, we're on orbit.
There's so much going on.
It is not easy.
I think we make it look easy.
That's our goal.
We want, we want the general public to go, think it's easy, but it's not.
It's way hard.
We wouldn't be here if we weren't ready.
We are ready.
The spacecraft's ready and the teams are ready.
And that's the message that I think you would expect to hear at this point else we wouldn't be here.
Yeah, I just want to add to that, you know, a kudos to our training team because our training team is not only our training team, but our developmental team.
So all the folks who have been working with us in mission control as well as, you know, the folks who are setting up the simulators have been with us in all of the technical debriefs discussions as we're getting the spacecraft ready.
We're formulating the procedures that we're going to perform based on all of the developmental tests that we've done in the simulators over the last, you know, years, couple of years.
And we had the kitchen sink essentially thrown at us the other day on an SN sim and we came out fine.
So I have all the confidence in, you know, not only our capabilities, the spacecraft capabilities, but also our mission control team who's ready for the challenge and they're up for it.
And they're getting ready back in Houston.
True anomaly is seemingly in rocky waters with news of layoffs being shared on social media.
The Denver based space startup has let go as much as 25% of its workforce and canceled its summer intern programs.
Employees started posting on LinkedIn about the layoffs over the last two days with people impacted working in sales, business development and recruiting.
True anomalies mission X mission, which was launched in March, failed to establish reliable communications with the two spacecraft that were deployed in orbit.
Most recently, though, it landed a contract for the US space forces, Victus Hayes mission, which is the follow on mission from Victus Knox.
You might remember that Victus Knox demonstrated the space forces ability to buy, build, launch and operate a satellite on rapid timelines and aims to showcase the ability to maneuver from a real time threat.
And speaking of the Victus Hayes contract, True anomaly has selected agile space to provide advanced propulsion technology for True Anomalies Jackal autonomous orbital vehicle.
In addition to the propulsion components agile will provide propellant logistic services including procurement, handling and spacecraft fuel loading for the Jackal AOV that True Anomaly will launch as part of the Victus Hayes demonstration in 2025.
Fingers crossed.
L3 Harris Technologies reported strong first quarter results.
The company reported net income of $283 million or diluted earnings per share of $1.48 on first quarter revenue of $5.2 billion.
The US defense and space company had recently cut 5% of its workforce to save costs.
The cuts represent about 2,500 of the roughly 50,000 employees the company had as of the end of last year, according to its annual filing.
Gravitix has been awarded a $1.7 million small business innovation research director phase two contract from Spaceworks.
The company plans to work with Rocket Lab USA, True Anomaly and other partners to adapt its space station architecture for the US space force under its new terms of contract.
Gravitix was among 18 companies that were fast tracked for phase two small business innovation research contracts as part of the tactically responsive space program.
NASA has selected groups from across the United States to receive "moon tree seedlings" that flew around the moon on the agency's Artemis-1 mission in 2022 to plant in their communities.
Notifications to selected institutions will be made in phases with the first beginning this spring, followed by notifications in fall 2024, spring 2025, and fall 2025.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a press release that, quote, "NASA is bringing the spirit of exploration back down to Earth because space belongs to everyone.
The Artemis generation will carry forth these seedlings that will be fertile ground for creativity, inspiration, and discovery for years to come."
Why want a space tree now?
And that concludes our briefing for today.
Head to the selected reading section of our show notes for further information on all the stories we have mentioned.
We've also added a great piece on the ISS National Lab's sponsored research on pharmaceutical development in microgravity.
Hey T-minus crew, tune in tomorrow for T-minus Deep Space, our show for extended interviews, special editions, and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry.
And tomorrow we have Sean Linem talking about being a role model for other women in the aerospace industry.
So check it out while you're walking the dog, catching up on the week's house chores, and celebrating your small towns festival like Alice's.
Go and say hi if you're going to Mira this weekend in Las Cruces.
For me it's the sheep shearing festival.
Either way, you don't want to miss it.
Our guest today is Matthew Cosby, director of space engineering at Goonhilly Earth Station.
And I caught up with Matt at the Space Symposium the other week to find out more about Goonhilly.
I'm Matt Cosby, I'm the CTO at Goonhilly Earth Station based in the UK.
My background is mainly deep space communications, so I spent a few decades working on interplanetary communications.
I've built communication systems for Mars landers, Mars rovers, and Mars orbiters, and now sort of concentrating on the next thing, which is the moon.
Indeed, yes, and we saw Goonhilly during the IM-1 mission and we were watching the video feed and we were all trying to figure out if it had landed or not, and they cut to Goonhilly and we all went, "Hey!"
That was a fantastic few hours.
So we were at Prime Station for that landing.
So we were on station at 5 GMT, and the landing was originally 9 o'clock, and then the IM guys decided to go one more trip around the moon to reconfigure their landing system.
That gave us a bit more time to prepare the station, and then we were given the all-clear to further the landing, and we followed it all the way down.
And yeah, we were the first to see the signal coming back.
So we weren't following the live feed because we were spending all that time looking at the signals from the moon.
But it's thanks to you all we had the sign of life that we all knew.
Absolutely.
And to me, the trace across the spectrum analyzer for the rest of my life, the idea of actually seeing a response from IM-1 was fabulous, absolutely fabulous, and then to relay that information to Nova Control in Houston, which then relayed it to the world, which was great.
I was imagining that must have been just a really proud moment for you all.
It was fantastic.
I mean, the adrenaline just kept everyone going, but we trained, we'd rehearsed with the team in IM, we'd rehearsed with them in Texas and so on.
So we knew exactly what was going on, we knew what we were doing, and we knew how to look for that signal.
And we were so glad that we got that signal back for them.
And it's a great mission.
It's a shame that it didn't wake up.
I know.
But it was a great mission to be part of and look forward to supporting the next one.
I was going to say, you must be part of the next one too.
Absolutely.
We're going to be part of the team, Sport IM-2, which hopefully will be later this year.
Fingers crossed, fingers crossed.
So tell me a little bit about Goonhillie.
For example, I didn't know that it was Private Leon, so this was news to me.
So I'll give you a history of Goonhillie.
It was built actually during the Second World War for radar sites.
Then it became a comm site for reception of the first transatlantic TV pictures with Tel Star back in 1962.
Then the large dishes were used for Apollo 11 landing.
So it broadcast the signal all the way around.
But back to London, which was then broadcast around Europe.
And it's been used for major events, including live aid.
And then in the 80s, it was owned by the UK government, owned by British Telecom, so the National Carrier.
It then, when satellites became more powerful, then the need for bigger dishes became less.
And so the bigger dishes were sort of retired.
And BT looked at ways of getting rid of those assets.
And then a small company about 2008, 2009, looked at buying the sites.
And we did that in 2014.
We've got a thousand year lease for that site.
So that should be good enough for us.
I was going to say, that's pretty decent.
I think so.
Yeah, that's OK.
I think it'll be fine.
So I mean, it's interesting.
So it's been privately owned now for about a little over a decade, or decade, yeah.
And I was speaking to a colleague of yours last night about Goonhillie has acquired some companies now in the United States.
Can you tell me a bit about that?
Yes, absolutely.
We've bought a commsat who have two sites now in the US, one in near Los Angeles and one in Connecticut.
So the California site is an ideal site for supporting the moon because it's about 120 degrees away from our UK location.
Then we just need another site in Australia to fill in that gap.
And actually the Connecticut site does fill in that gap and gives us 100% coverage of the moon.
So that's the reasons for those locations.
They do teleport services on their own right, which is also why we...
That's fantastic.
Now I understand.
That makes a lot of sense for that acquisition then.
So I was going to ask about long term vision.
Given 10 years now private, you must have some big plans or ambitions anyway.
Could you tell me about them?
Sure.
So one of the things that we want the large dishes to do is to support the moon.
The first few maybe three or four years will be government run.
And then eventually the commercialization of the moon.
And we want to be there for supporting those commercialization.
So supporting the data back from either the surface or through relays, either way that we will be that direct to worth communications.
And that's what we want to be offered.
So having those locations globally gives us that global coverage.
And that's what we're aiming for.
So we're looking for another location somewhere on the other side.
But...
Yeah, Australia.
If you know a location in Australia, that would be good.
Although we actually have got, we've eyeballed a few locations.
So I was going to say, I'll keep my ears open for you, but you would know a lot more than I would.
We are looking, but yeah, it's a lot of investment.
We've got to balance that with people going.
Because early on the clips, the commercial lunar payload services, missions are very short lived.
You've got two weeks or less than that.
We want, once you get to the sustainable overnight, once these companies like Intuitive Machines have cracked the overnight, and then we've got even human presence on the moon, that's when we'll come in to our own.
So we've just got to prepare ourselves for that eventuality, which is going to be in maybe two, three, four years time.
Yeah, I was going to say, you partner with a number of huge organizations.
And are there other clips programs that you're supporting?
No, we're just supporting Intuitive.
That's not bad.
I mean, that's not bad at all.
I was just curious.
Anything else you wanted to mention about Goon Hilli while we're here?
Well, I would say we've got a long history, but we want to be a great future ahead of us.
And so we are concentrating on that, so lunar and the deep space.
And then ultimately, there will be commercial deep space missions.
So actually missions going to Mars and Venus, so they're already in the pipeline to go to Venus.
And with the large antennas that we have, we can then support that next step.
So we want to be there for the next one.
So get the moon done, done and dusted, then to deep space.
Fantastic.
And then I'll hang up my retirement.
I think that's going to tire.
But until then, plenty to do.
Absolutely, yes.
Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
I appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back.
Fellow Lego builders, make some more space on those shelves and get ready to get your space break on.
Because there are two more space related official Lego sets coming out in May.
They are good ones.
OK, so eagle-eyed Lego watchers already knew about these when news of them leaked on Lego watcher fansites.
Shout out to my husband, Eric, who was on the case weeks ago.
We're getting an official NASA SLS set for all us Artemis fans, as well as a gorgeous Milky Way Galaxy art set that would look gorgeous on any wall.
The space launch system of the Artemis program Lego model stands over two feet tall when complete and includes the mobile launch tower, as well as both the Orion crew module and the European service module from the Artemis One mission.
The SLS kit is 3,601 pieces and will retail at 260 US dollars.
Lots of keep us all busy.
But if that's a bit over your budget for a little less, only a little less, at $199 is the Milky Way Galaxy Lego art set.
It makes the most of unusual Lego shapes and textures to make this quite a distinctive art piece for your wall.
And even has a little "you are here" sign, optional of course, in case you forget where we are in this giant swirling mats we call home.
So set that calendar reminder for May 15th when both sets go on sale for Lego insiders and the 18th to the GenPop.
And I should note that we're getting a whole bunch of space themed Lego mini figures in May as well, apparently.
But the SLS, which is a 1 to 1,44 scale model, is not at mini figure scale, I'm sorry to say.
Mini figs are at about a 1 to 40 ratio.
But if Lego ever makes an SLS set that clocks in around 5 feet tall, I promise I will let you all know.
Yeah, baby, your size then, won't it?
Don't tell them that I'm short, Alice!
It'll be Maria's size, the Maria size SLS.
I love it.
We all need a Maria size SLS.
So that's it for T-minus for April 26th, 2024.
For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com.
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This episode was produced by Alice Caruth, mixing by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music and sound design by Elliot Peltzman.
Our associate producer is Liz Stokes.
Our executive producer is Jen Ivan.
Our VP is Brandon Karp.
And I'm Maria Varmausus, not SLS-sized.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next week.
I made you laugh!
Yay!
I like that.
T minus.
Oh my god.
[Loud thud] [BLANK_AUDIO]
