[SOUND] To launch something is to set things into motion. We're guilty on the show of underselling just how difficult it is to launch the space. The overused cliche of space is hard, doesn't quite cut it when we're talking about starting a new commercial industry. So launching your own rocket from your own launch pad and your own mission control center is honestly an amazing achievement that we cannot overstate. So bravo, Agnicole Cosmos, or should we say, Abinandam. [MUSIC] Today is May 30th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmasus and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] India's Agnicole Cosmos launches the Agnibon rocket for the first time. Russia's Progress 88 lifts off to the ISS. InnoSpace signs launch agreements with two Brazilian institutes. And I'll be talking to Nathan Butler and Barry Creighton from Brigham Young University's rocket team about defending their title at the Spaceport America Cup this year. So stick around for the second part of the show for that. [MUSIC] Let's dive into our Thursday Intel Briefing, shall we? And we're kicking things off with some celebratory news from India. Commercial space company Agnicole Cosmos launched the Agnibon rocket for the first time earlier today. The spacecraft was powered by the only Indian rocket engine to use both gas and liquid fuel in the country's second flight of a privately built rocket. The Agnibon two-stage launch vehicle flew for two minutes to an apogee of approximately 50 miles up before splashing down into the ocean. The spacecraft is designed to carry a payload of over 650 pounds into an orbit of about 435 miles. The suborbital flight's mission was to test Agnicole's new engine and 3D printed parts. Agnicole, whose name is derived from the Hindi and Sanskrit word for fire, was founded in 2017 and runs India's first private launch pad and mission control center. The company announced that all mission objectives of the controlled vertical ascent flight were met and that performance was nominal. Congratulations to everyone who's involved. Hey ISS crew, you've got mail. A Russian cargo spacecraft launched earlier today and headed to the orbiting lab, filled with about three tons of food, propellant and other supplies for the astronauts living aboard the International Space Station. The robotic Progress 88 freighter lifted off atop a Soyuz rocket from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It's expected to dock with the orbiting lab early on Saturday. South Korean startup InnoSpace has signed new launch service agreements with two Brazilian institutes. The Federal University of Amaranáu and Castro-Liete Consultoria have booked a rideshare launch mission on InnoSpace's Hanbit Nano launch vehicle. The launch is scheduled for the first half of 2025 from the Alcantara Space Center in Brazil. Japan's smart lander for investigating moon, also known as SLIM, has far exceeded expectations for its operational period, but it has failed to wake up when JAXA recently sent a signal. JAXA has stated that it hasn't given up on the Plochee lunar lander and will try again next month when the sun returns to the landing site. Hope you wake up, SLIM. Mementis has secured a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as DARPA, to support the design and in-space demonstration of technologies that will enable the construction of large-scale structures in space. The DARPA Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing Materials and Mass Efficient Design Program, also known as Nomad, focuses on developing the foundations for building robust and precise structures in space. The vision is to transport raw materials from Earth for in-orbit manufacturing. For the Nomad On-Orbit Demo Program, Mementis will collaborate with other Nomad performers to design and refine experiments that can be integrated onto the company's Vigoride Orbital Service Vehicle. These experiments must meet the stringent requirements for both launch and in-space operation. Virgin Galactic looks to be in trouble after receiving notice from the New York Stock Exchange stating that the average closing price per share of its common stock did not exceed a dollar over a 30 consecutive trading day period. One dollar per share is required for continued listing on the NYSE. The space tourism company has notified the NYSE of its intent to regain compliance with the continued listing standards by seeking stockholder approval at its upcoming annual meeting of stockholders on June 12th to complete a reverse stock split of the company's common stock. Virgin Galactic filed a proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 29th that contains additional details about the proposed reverse stock split. The company has six months after receipt of the notice to regain compliance with the NYSE-listed company manual. During this period, Virgin Galactic's common stock will continue to be listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Rocket Lab has set a June 1 date for the second of two back-to-back electron launches for NASA's Prefire mission. Prefire, which stands for the Polar Radiant Energy in the Far Infrared Experiment, is a climate change focus mission for the U.S. Space Agency. The Prefire and ICE launch will take place seven days after the first launch from Rocket Lab's facility in New Zealand. And it's been confirmed that North Korea failed to launch a military satellite over the weekend. Images of a rocket exploding during ascent were captured by Japan's NHK television and North Korea acknowledged the failure. The military reconnaissance satellite known as Maligyong-11 was being carried by a new type of rocket from the Sohai launch site in North Korea. The launch has been condemned by North Korea's neighbors, who stated the country violated UN sanctions with the flight. And that concludes our briefing for today. As always, you'll find links in the show notes to further information on all the stories that we've mentioned in the show. And we've included one additional story on the new commercial spaceflight Federation President announcement. AT-MINUS crew, if your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership or recruit talent, AT-MINUS can help. We'd like to hear from you. Just send us an email at space@entuk.com or send us a note through our website so we can connect about building a program to meet your goals. [Music] The Spaceport America Cup is the world's largest intercollegiate engineering competition. The 16th Cup returns this summer from June 17th to 22nd. And I got to speak to Nathan Butler and Barry Creighton from the reigning champs at Brigham Young University. I am Nathan Butler. I just graduated actually from BYU here in Provo in mechanical engineering. I am the team lead for BYU Rocketry this year. I was also on the team last year when we won. And after this, I'm taking a few vacations this summer and going to work for Firefly Aerospace down in Austin, Texas. Congrats. That's awesome. And Barry, tell me a bit about yourself too. My name is Barry Creighton. I am also a mechanical engineering major. This was my third year. I'm doing five years. So I'll have still two more years left to go in my program. I'm also really excited because this summer, besides going to Space Fort America, I also have an internship with Northrop Grumman. It's just going to be a summer full of rockets. I wouldn't ask for anything else, much else other than that. That's just awesome. We love to hear this kind of thing. So as you sort of teased BYU one last year at Space Fort America Cup, tell me a bit about that experience. It was a really fun experience. First off, just being able to go down to New Mexico and Space Fort America with people that I've spent a year with designing, building a rocket, sometimes long work hours, staying up later or early mornings, having that fun travel time. It's always neat to be with your friends at fun special experiences like that. So being able to go there and it's always a little bit nerve wracking when you're at a big culmination point in a project. It's like, okay, is it going to work or no? So we got through conference days, the first couple of days, and then we got to Wednesday and we were able to launch on Wednesday. Thankfully, the weather is always a little bit dicey down there. I don't know if you've been or not, but the wind is, it keeps you on your toes, that's for sure. Yeah. So we got to launch and it was a beautiful launch, beautiful recovery. And we were very happy. We got out there and we heard the beeps on the altimeters reading out the apogee. So as soon as we got all the stuff, we turned in the recovery tent and showed them our apogee and they looked over the rocket, no damage. And we were already at that point, we were kind of saying amongst ourselves like, oh, we could win this whole thing. We were kind of excited because we had a really good flight. We've done all of the technical things beforehand. And so we were pretty excited going into the award ceremony on Saturday. And when they had called us for the category award, the 10k Cots category award, at that point, we were super excited to get in. Oh, this is awesome. And then we were like, wait a minute, if we won the category with the most teams in it, it's quite possible that we'll win the whole competition. So we're super excited, you know, 30 minutes later or so, whenever we got around to the Genesis Cup, we're team seven, we're like, yes. Anyway, so it was a really ethereal experience. It was great to have that this awesome culmination of a year's work. And we're excited to go back this year. I think we're definitely in the running again to bring home at least one, maybe a few awards. So I'm excited. Yeah, no pressure, right? After the current reigning champs, right? So Barry, you're newer to this. Does this weigh on you at all? Being like, there's a legacy now. What do we do with this? It's only a whole years of work now. Yeah. No kidding. So yeah, I was not on the team last year. This is my first year being on B.W. Rocketry. I do remember watching the live stream and watching the Rocket Launch and watching the award Simone D. Like, yeah, it's B.W.1. So excited for them. And then I applied on the B.W. Rocketry team and I was like, this is so exciting. And I was like, oh, we have this legacy now. There's gonna be some pressure on for sure to uphold the standard we set last year. So I definitely felt some of that pressure, especially in the work I'm trying to do and the quality of the reports and that sort of thing that we've been putting out. You definitely feel it. I'm sure you and the team, you're all just super, super busy right now after so many months of work. I'm so curious from last year's victory, what were the lessons learned that you all took back and sort of, what are you trying to implement in terms of any changes? I mean, I know you can give stuff away, but I mean, there's gotta be some cool lessons learned from last year's experience. Nathan, any thoughts on that? Yeah, so I'll say a lot of the lessons we learned. So over the past couple of years, and we started really doing getting into this two years ago and we've been building and building, but we learned much more the value of doing really in depth engineering, design, analysis and verification. Instead of just saying, oh, we chose this size bolt because we figured we'd oversized it so we didn't have to do the math. We wanted to actually do the math, do the testing, pull stuff apart, see how it fails, stuff like that. So that's an important lesson and we've done a great job of doing that this year. Barry has been very involved himself in a lot of the testing with carbon fiber itself and the body tubes and things like that for the rocket. And one of the logistical lessons is time management and scheduling. Mmm. Always fun. Yeah, at the end of any project, there tends to be a rush before deadlines to get things done. And in the past that has sometimes cost us and other groups some quality, maybe. So this year, we were really trying to hit our schedule deadlines hard and not just end deadlines, but start deadlines for things like our final technical reports. Like, okay, we need to start doing these like six weeks before they're due. So that way we can have them done and have them reviewed by multiple, you know, professionals, professors here at BYU and things like that to make sure they're clear. They have the good information and stuff like that. Yeah. While managing an academic career too. I mean, like, yeah. Barry, since again, since you're new and I'm sorry to keep harping on that, but you've now gone through a full year of this basically. So I'm just curious what it's been like for you this year. Yeah, it's been a really good experience. Just starting. I remember the first team meetings and Nathan has done a fantastic job of harping on this on getting things done. I'm starting on the projects early and making sure that we spread the load out more through the semester. And that was something that I think has really been helpful, especially for me coming in. I certainly worked as rush. I've done a lot of like model rockets before in the past. I've never done anything this high power at this scale. So being able to take any of the knowledge I've learned previously from some of my other projects and some of my classes be able to say, okay, if you're on these carbon fiber samples, we've never really used before, test before, let's figure out how strong this is. Let's figure out, let's test this to the limit to see if we can actually clean any new information and useful information that we might have not used previously. So it was a really good experience. I would say even Barry researched all the industry standards like ASTM test standard number, blah, blah, blah to actually do all of these standards. Yeah, we wanted to make sure that the tests we run were also in accordance with what would be done with professional level. So we identified from technical reports from the carbon fiber manufacturers what test standards they have used to test their carbon fiber. And we did our best to replicate those tests. And hopefully we can also apply that to more of our rocket in years to come. Yeah, I was going to say that level of rigor, I'm sure just absolutely pays dividends when it comes to the competition. I figure I'd ask you both sort of, maybe it's a basic, it is a basic question about what you're looking forward to. Barry, it'll be your first time going, Nathan, this is like your victory lap. So I figure it's going to be very different for each of you. So Barry, why don't you start first, tell me what you're looking forward to. And then Nathan, you can wrap us up. I'm excited just to be out there, be surrounded by a bunch of rocket trainers and just be able to experience a level of competition at the collegiate level that I've never really had an opportunity to experience before. And like, let's go beyond just like resume building, right? Like, it looks good on a resume, sure. But just the experience of actually being there, the experience of going through this competition, I'm sure will pay dividends also in future careers. Why have similar pressures put on me as well? And also just opportunity to network and build connections, not just with my teammates, obviously, but also with people from other colleges and other universities who I might not have a chance to meet before. Absolutely. And Nathan, over to you. Yeah. So I honestly feel very similar to Barry. There's just the fact that just being there, like I mentioned in the beginning of our conversation here that it's just invigorating, it's fun, energizing to just be around the fellow rocketeers. Rocketry over the past kind of three years has been a big part of my life. And like you said, it's kind of culmination. It's a victory lap. So I don't know, I've invested a lot of time, a lot of just effort in general and stuff into this project. And so I'm just excited to see the fruits, see the results. I'm excited for the social aspect of it to go talk to other teams. I love going around and talking to some of the other teams from other continents and other countries and seeing what the innovations that they've come up with and just meeting the new people from all over the world. I think that's awesome. It is such a big global competition. And then I'm excited to see Rockets launch. And I don't know, maybe some people might be afraid to admit it. I obviously don't wish failure on anyone, but watching a Cato is pretty cool, right? You're not the first person to say that at all. And I'm just excited to make some new memories and hopefully have a successful time. My goal is to come home with at least one trophy. [Music] We'll be right back. Welcome back. You know, we're not quite done talking about impending launches yet. Although this time we're heading overseas to the Bonnie Isles of Shetland. And that's in Scotland for those of you that are not familiar with the geography of the British Isles. And it's also home to Saxaverd Space Port. Previously known as the Shetland Space Center, Saxaverd is a space port located on the Lambaness Peninsula on Unst, the most northerly of the Shetland Islands, off of mainland Scotland. And yesterday they opened their doors to the public and stamped their open for business mark on the space industry. Saxaverd held a ribbon-cutting ceremony declaring Europe's first vertical launch space port warmly ready for business. And although the launch facility is licensed to go, they're still waiting on some regulatory approvals ahead of the first test launch by Rocket Factory Augsburg, expected this summer. The pictures of schoolchildren assisting with the ribbon-cutting set the tone for the event. The future of the workforce will be working with space. Here we say, and it seems that the weather was even compliant with brilliant sunshine bathing the ceremony. Don't expect that all the time in Scotland, everybody. But still, we can't wait to see the launch site in full action. And we hope we can make it over for a wee drum from the local distillery to mark the occasion. That's it for T-minus for May 30th, 2024, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. We're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T-minus are part of the daily routine of many 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. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth, our associate producer's Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petralla is our president. Peter Kilpia is our publisher. And I'm your host, Maria Varmausis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
