Where in the Universe is the Roadster?

[MUSIC] Europe is having a stellar week. We've seen astronaut assignments, big contracts for ISS resupply missions, and space weather probes. And they don't seem to be taking their foot off the gas with more announcements today from the Space Council Summit. Speaking of foot on the gas, stick around for our kicker today to find out what the latest trajectory is for the space roadster. >> [LAUGH] >> All right, Alice. >> Happy Friday. >> Happy Friday, Marie. You know, it's enough to make me wonder what will happen if the whole universe ceased to exist. It's no matter. >> [LAUGH] >> This is what happens when I don't have much time, Maria. >> [LAUGH] >> This is a match joke. >> Existentialist humor, I love that. I love that. >> Yes. >> It's very in my new house. >> Love that. >> T-minus. >> 20 seconds to all the way. >> Open the floor. >> [MUSIC] >> Today is May 24th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmazes. I'm Alice Karuth, and this is T-minus. >> [MUSIC] >> US lawmakers see Artemis as a top NASA priority. ESA and EU to boost European competitiveness in space. Amazon begins de-orbiting satellites. >> And our guest today is Ron Berg, Principal Director for the Space Enterprise Evolution Director at the Aerospace Corporation. Ron and Maria will be discussing the flight-proven paradox that the industry is wrestling with, so stay with us for that chat. [MUSIC] >> Happy Friday. Let's dig into today's briefing, shall we? Competition in the new space race remains fierce. Breaking news there. The US has not kept it a secret that it believes that China is a threatened space. So it should come as no surprise to many that US lawmakers are viewing America's mission to the moon as the top priority for the US space agency. The Commerce Justice Science Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee met yesterday with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, by the way, a former senator himself. The subcommittee pushed for NASA to maintain their schedule and avoid cost overruns and hold contractors accountable for the Artemis program. And when asked if Artemis is the priority for NASA, Nelson replied that it is one of the top priorities because of the geopolitical situation that we are in a space race, meaning with China. Nelson was also quizzed if he is confident in the new schedule with Artemis 2 launching in September 2025 and Artemis 3 a year later. Well, Nelson gave his standard answer that NASA will not launch until they're ready, and he said that September 2025 for Artemis 2 is "realistic." But as for Artemis 3, another quote here, "If we land in September 2026, depends on whether SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System is available." So it all hinges on SpaceX and funding. Nelson did remind the subcommittee that the NASA budget was significantly cut this fiscal year by $5 billion because of the budget caps in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and that meant he had to make, and another quote here, "uncomfortable choices." Everyone wants progress, but no one seems to want to pay for it. Oh, isn't that always the case? Over to Europe now, and a resolution to use space to boost European competitiveness has been agreed to by the European Space Agency and the European Union at the conclusion of the Space Council Summit held in Brussels. The resolution highlights the transformation of the space sector globally, as well as the unprecedented role in space in determining Europe's prosperity, competitiveness, safety, security and autonomous decision-making. It emphasises that Europe's space programmes are important for policies and strategic action, and for making Europe and its space industry more resilient and competitive, and states that these programmes should continue to benefit all member states of ESA and the EU. The resolution welcomes the potential for further growth and diversification of European new space and underlines ESA and the EU's role in fostering the development of a strong European space ecosystem. On the sidelines of the EU summit, 12 European countries signed the charter for a "Debris Neutral Space." Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden and the UK, all committed to... [LAUGHS] All committed to the zero-debris charter. In practice, this means those countries who have signed up to the agreement when launching a satellite commit to bringing it back down or deorbiting it at the end of its life, starting from 2030. Which in practice is a little easier said than done, unless you're Amazon, that is. Amazon's project Kuiper is actively deorbiting its two prototype satellites ahead of a full-scale deployment of its satellite constellation. The Kuiper satellite prototypes were launched in October to test the hardware and software systems that will be used for the full satellite network. During a series of short-duration tests, they were used to transmit data for streaming a video, an Amazon purchase, a two-way video call and other applications. Amazon also tested a laser communication system for beaming data between satellites. Lasers. Project Kuiper's orbital debris mitigation plan calls for deorbiting each satellite in its network within a year after its mission ends, which is why the controlled descent and safe disposal of the KuiperSAT serve as an important final test. Over the next several months, Amazon says it will use the active propulsion systems on board KuiperSAT 1 and KuiperSAT 2 to execute a series of controlled manoeuvres. Combined with natural drag from the Earth's atmosphere, those manoeuvres will gradually lower satellites to an altitude of around 217 miles, at which point atmospheric demise will follow. It's a nice euphemism, atmospheric demise. [laughs] On to some US Space Force updates now, starting with the military branch's request for proposals for a vehicle for its Space Test Experiments Platform, also known as STEP 2.0. The acquisition arm of the Space Force is seeking commercially developed space vehicles that can host experimental payloads and allow the Defense Department to conduct tests of emerging technologies on orbit. The service plans to award multiple awards to vendors over the next decade that are able to provide platforms for the Space Force's science and technology experiments. The US House Armed Service Committee has approved an amendment that would allow governors to maintain their authority over Air National Guard units with space missions. The amendment complicates an Air Force proposal that seeks to transfer those units and several hundred airmen to the Space Force. If the provision becomes law, it could end a contentious period between Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who asked to circumvent governors during those transfers as part of a draft legislation in mid-March, and the state governors and National Guard officials who opposed the idea. And the Space Force is facing new opposition in Hawaii due to plans to build additional telescopes on Maui. The Space Force wants to build seven new telescopes on land. The Space Force has under lease to track space debris, adjacent to existing observatories at Science City at Haleakala. The new telescopes would be part of a project called the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site Small Telescope Advanced Research, or AMOS Star. Native Hawaiians who are opposed to the project say summits like Haleakala and Mauna Kea are sacred places. And the proposed facility, which would occupy an acre of land on the summit of Haleakala, is a continuation of settled colonial projects. US military officials say the project is necessary for national security and space domain awareness. They're working on an environmental impact statement for the project plans. ViASAT has announced that it's working with AZA Cosmos to bring its highly reliable L-Band satellite services to Azerbaijan and the surrounding region. AZA Cosmos provides a range of telecommunications, remote sensing, surveying and ground station communication services in both the public and private sectors. The collaboration with ViASAT will significantly expand its available connectivity offering. Israeli satellite communications company Satyx-Fi has reported first quarter financial results. The company reported gross profit for the first quarter of 2024 at $1.6 million, a 62% increase from $1 million in the first quarter of 2023. Satyx-Fi says the increase in gross profit and margin was due to the delivery of services with lower cost during the first quarter of 2024. The company's operating loss was also higher than the same quarter last year, which Satyx-Fi says is due to an increase in their research and development expenses. And that concludes our briefing for today. Check out the selected reading section of our show notes for further information on all the stories we have mentioned. You'll also find a story there on Hong Kong's first-ever payload specialist for China's National Manned Space Program, another on the Space Force's plans to hold annual tactically responsive space demonstrations and an announcement from NASA on their technology services contractor. Hey, T-Minus crew, tune in tomorrow for T-Minus Deep Space. It's 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 Rebel Space CEO, Carrie Hernandez Marshall, talking about vulnerabilities in cybersecurity and space. You know, if somebody has put something in your system that you're aware of, right, if there's some small piece of, you know, code or, you know, something built in, you know, because you are trying to move forward and do these really hard things in space, it's hard to tell sometimes if that's just your design. Does something go in there that is actually going to affect you? And so understanding and having that pattern analysis of what normal should look like for this particular satellite is really important because now you flag internally also things are, OK, that's weird. You know, I got a weird command, I got rejected. Now suddenly this particular subsystem on my satellite's actually flooding. Check it out while you're cleaning off the grill, getting groceries for a long weekend or prepping for your town's Memorial Day commemoration. You don't want to miss it. And a programming note fuel. It is Memorial Day weekend for us here in the United States this weekend, and we will not be publishing our regular news update on Monday in honor of the holiday. You can look forward to a Memorial Day special program from N2K in our news feed. Our guest today is Ron Burke, principal director for the Space Enterprise Evolution Directorate at the Aerospace Corporation. Ron pitched to us the problem with the flight proven paradox that the industry is wrestling with, and I started by asking Ron to elaborate a little bit on what that means. I appreciate the opportunity to kind of expand that and enable your listeners to give thought to this and invite people's considerations for how we as a community accelerate the deployment of innovative commercial space capabilities. That's really the focus of the intent, is to do just that consistent with, for instance, the US Space Force has recently released commercial space strategy, where they really want to accelerate the deployment. So the context that this flight proven paradox comes up in is that, I'll call them the players in the game, the, and, you know, endearingly referring to this community as gatekeepers, the regulators, the insurers, the investors, even the acquirers and integrators. These are all key people and key positions that make decisions about moving innovative commercial and innovative capabilities in general forward and into space. And we had noted that while a lot of new capabilities have been developed, let's take the ISAM area as a, as a, for instance, we're tracking over 400 companies that are developing even more capabilities. A lot of capabilities being developed, but a relatively small amount is being deployed. So we're also tracking the number that are deployed, and it's on the order of seven or eight, depending on how you define the parameters. That's like 2%, right? So it's, it's, it's, you know, in a world where we want to accelerate the deployment of innovative commercial capabilities, we're really seeing a lot being developed, but not a lot being deployed. So we reached out to colleagues in the community, in the insurance community, in the investor community, the regulators, and asked them, why isn't more being moved from sort of the left hand to the right hand if you're thinking about this as two, two sets? And the response was all some form of, we're looking for flight proven. And so the challenge is that there may not be enough launch capacity in the world to launch all of those capabilities twice, right? Once to prove them in another time to deploy them. And so therein lies the conundrum, right? The flight proven paradox. We want to accelerate deploying, but the players in the game that, that need information to make the decisions are not feeling that they have the confidence that they need to make the decision to deploy. That is a great point. I wanted to ask, is it just a, we're feeling conservative and we just don't want to take a risk on something that hasn't been? Or is it, are there also regulatory issues? Or as you mentioned, insurance are, like my mission won't be insured if we don't use flight proven and therefore that's a non-starter? Well, that seems to be the challenge, is that it's a layered effect that the developer of a capability, of course, would look, would seek to get insurance. And so if, if the insurers of this novel capability don't have the information necessary to make that decision, right? Then that inhibits progress. The regulators may not have the information necessary to clear a novel capability to be deployed. And so if you layer or cascade these six different areas, it can form quite the challenge to achieving the intent, right? Which is to get the capability out in space and operating there. Yeah, so I could see that, I mean, the issue becomes apparent where you have a lot of great tech that may wither on the vine that doesn't get a chance to be tried out. And then you've got a lot of the players who already established you kind of dominate and they just own that lane. So, I mean, this is quite a challenging issue. What do we do about this? It's a great question. So we've also looked at, researched that issue, this issue and that question. And one thing that we found is that the agencies that have been deploying capabilities for decades, NASA, Space Force, other space agencies, have all used testbeds and proving grounds as a mechanism to build confidence and capabilities on the path to the decision to deploy them. And what's interesting about that particular approach is that there are many testbeds and proving grounds that are specifically designed for space systems that are available. Our colleagues at NASA have published, in their published NASA ISAM State of Play report from last fall, have an Appendix 9 in that document that outlines 50 specific testbed and proving ground capabilities/facilities that are available. And we've gone on to do a broader review of the capabilities across the community and have built an inventory of 100 of these that are available. And whose owners and operators, certainly the ones that we spoke into today, are very interested in seeing them used more frequently. If those testbeds are conducting those tests at a level that will boost confidence, this could almost be sort of a middle point where maybe it's not technically flight proven, but it's gone through the rigors of testing to a degree that the confidence is there. Indeed, right? So it's something one of our colleagues in the insurance community actually has dubbed flight proven equivalent. While it's not fully at the same level, it does provide, as you just recounted, it does provide a level of confidence that is over and above just simply being told about a capability. It shows to whatever level the testbed and proving grounds capacity is. It shows that level of information that can help a regulator make a more informed decision, make an insurance broker or insurance company make a more informed decision about how they proceed forward. Are there examples of where we've seen this be successful? Oh, absolutely. There are a very large number of examples where this has been used on a routine basis. I will note that we actually are recognizing NOAA and their testbed and proving ground capabilities as I'll use the expression benchmark for this approach. So NOAA has a ongoing and well-established approach to proving out new observation capabilities and new model capabilities, whether forecasting model capabilities in dedicated proving grounds on the path to operationalizing them. NASA likewise has a number of test chambers, of course, in terms of the standard test chambers, for things like thermal vac and vibration testing. But I'm really, and we're really speaking of going beyond just the basic testing of the systems to testing the operation of the systems in their environment, their operational environment. And so, for instance, NASA Glenn has sophisticated communications system testbed and proving ground. And NASA Goddard does as well. Fascinating. So given the amount of technology that's being developed for space at different scales, do we have the testbed capacity in an ideal world? Would everyone have access to the testbeds that they need? Or would there be potentially a bottleneck there? Do we need to build more? So that's an interesting question. There are many capabilities that do exist. I mentioned the 100 that we are tracking the inventory of. And so the best of our understanding at this point is those are underutilized. Okay, so I appreciate that's a slightly different question that you asked, right? So if there was a full on surge, if you will, to have all of the capabilities that have been developed to go through testbed and proving ground scenarios, there could be capacity limitations. But there is a lot of capability that's out there that can be utilized. One of the longer pull challenges in that tent is there hasn't been a coordinated place to go to find everything that's available, right? And to have the benefit of what I'm going to refer to in a supply and demand, you know, and use the supply and demand framework to point out that there's supply side on the part of the commercial and other innovative capability providers. And there's a demand side on the part of the owners and operators, for instance, the Space Force NASA, other commercial end users who would want to use the data. And then the gatekeepers, right, that could benefit from seeing these supply side capabilities go through these testbeds. So there's a fairly robust community of stakeholders and beneficiaries for this approach. I appreciate your answer to that question. It's a very good distinction to make that we're not at capacity yet. So if facilities are being underutilized, that's a very good point as well. So where do we go from here? I mean, you've laid out a really fascinating potential solution to this issue. There are challenges that remain. So what do we do next? So three next steps just to not make it the overly, you know, sort of complex and not get into areas that we won't know until we take these steps, right? But a next step is to have a broader recognition of the potential for testbeds and proving grounds to provide this flight proven equivalent level of information for decision support. Okay. So just have a broader cognizance of that capability in that approach. That's number one. Number two is to establish a common governance framework. So there are a number of parameters that are logically important to know regarding using a testbed and proving ground capability. You know, what's the scope of what it's, you know, sort of designed for? How do you access it? How do you schedule time with it? How does the owner and operator of that facility handle intellectual property, right? What do, you know, what does someone who puts their system through the gauntlet of that testbed receive on the other side? You know, it's detailed report or, you know, other product that comes out. So when I say common governance model, I don't mean having a common value for those parameters, but recognizing that there are a set of parameters where we recognize seven discrete ones, including the ones I just mentioned, and building a knowledge base of what the values of those parameters are for the testbeds that are under consideration for use. And then the third is harmonizing the overall approach because it is very much a supply and demand opportunity. So it's important for a critical mass of all three elements, the suppliers, the demand community, and the testbed owner and operator community. [Music] We'll be right back. Welcome back. Inevitably over this upcoming long weekend, many of us in the U.S. will find ourselves in the vicinity of a barbecue. And it's been observed that while standing around a barbecue grill, elaborate stories and extraordinary anecdotes must be exchanged in equal, if not greater, proportionality to the amount of beer being consumed. Come on, that's just science. So here's a fun fact to drop while your protein of choice is being flipped. Remember the space roadster? That would be the Tesla car that Elon Musk yeeted into space via the first SpaceX Falcon Heavy back in 2018. You might remember the images of that red car with Starman, presumably a dummy, strapped into the driver's seat, quietly floating above our planet as it listens to David Bowie's "Is There Life on Mars?" and space oddity over and over and over. Well, roadster has been in space for over six years now, and it's kind of on a weird orbit. I'm sure it's not a surprise to you that more than a handful of people are tracking its whereabouts as it sort of wibble wobbles inside and outside of Earth and Mars' orbits. And thanks to the incredible power of simulations and statistics, people have plotted out roadster's likely path over the next dozen years or so as it continues to wibble. And we do have some numbers that you can chew on. In the long, long term, like many hundreds of years, if not more, roadster has a 22% chance of coming back to Earth and a 12% chance of colliding with Venus or the Sun. That said, it may happen earlier if in some sci-fi twist to fate, star man gains sentience and decides he's really, really done listening to the same two songs on repeat. I love that. Statistics to the rescue. That's it for Team Ionus for May 24th, 2024, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space@n2k.com. We're privileged that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K makes it easy for companies to optimize your biggest investment, your people. We make you smarter about your teams while making your teams smarter. Learn how at N2K.com. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Heltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Heltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. And I'm your host, Maria Varmasas. Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful weekend. [Music] T-minus. 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