SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is grounded.

Let's hop on the space roller coaster. It's quite a ride. While there are highs when things are going well and international partnerships are forged, there are some mighty lows when it comes to launch failures and destruction of property. It's all in a day's work in this industry. And like a cool rain after a long drought, Alice's jokes are back. Alice, regale us. You missed me really, okay. I know. What did the star say to the moon who was having a tantrum? Stop your waning. Stop your f- It's like a- that's a mom joke. That you go from dad jokes to mom. That's a mom joke. I like it. That's great. And mom- T minus. Twenty seconds to L-O-N, Peter. Open aboard. Today is July 12th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmausus. I'm Alice Curve and this is T-minus. Space X's Falcon 9 suffers a second stage engine failure. China's ice base suffers an anomaly. The US Space Force appoints a new assistant CSO. And our guest today is Holly Pascal, NASA engineer and founder of the Women's Aerospace Network. Holly will be sharing some news from the network's inaugural awards, so stay with us for that chat. It's Friday everybody, let's get into it. Today's top story is an unusual bit of news in these parts. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket had a second stage engine failure yesterday while in orbit, causing a loss of the vehicle entirely. The last time a Falcon 9 had an in-flight mishap was in 2015, so this is indeed a rare occurrence. Yesterday's Falcon 9 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California without issue, and it was carrying 20 Starlink satellites, which were deployed, but in a much lower orbit than optimal, so it's not clear right now if those satellites will even be usable. Right around the time the first burn of the upper stage occurred, visible chunks of ice started to build up around the top of the Falcon 9's Merlin engine, as well as some liquid dripping. According to Elon Musk, the engine exploded off-camera during the attempted second burn of the Merlin engine. An anomaly during a licensed flight like this one does necessitate an FAA investigation, so all SpaceX Falcon 9 launches are on hold until the FAA investigation process into this mishap is complete. Given the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch cadence, this may very well put a dent in some upcoming plans, including the end-of-July Polaris Dawn flight. As for that flight, Jared Isaacman, who is part of the Polaris Dawn crew, wrote this on X, "SpaceX has an incredible track record with the Falcon 9. I can say from personal experience they are very transparent when issues arise. I have no doubt they will arrive at a cause quickly and ensure the most cost-effective and reliable launch vehicle keeps delivering payload into orbit. As for Polaris Dawn, we will fly whenever SpaceX is ready and with complete confidence in the rocket, spaceship, and operations." And it's not just SpaceX finding that space can be hard. China's ice base suffered another launch failure. This one resulted in the loss of three satellites as part of a commercial constellation being assembled for global weather forecasting and earthquake prediction. The rocket startup company's Hyperbola-1 rocket launched from the Jujuan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert. According to Chinese media, the rocket's first, second, and third stages flew normally, but the fourth stage suffered an anomaly. The company says the specific reasons for the failure will be announced as soon as possible after detailed investigations. In China is planning a mission to both observe and impact a near-Earth asteroid with a single launch. According to an article in the Journal of Deep Space Exploration, a new proposal based on existing preliminary studies has identified 2015 XF-261, a roughly 98-foot diameter near-Earth asteroid as the target for the dual spacecraft observation and impact mission. The final target selection will be refined based on the actual launch window with the launch expected before 2030. A Ukrainian drone has reportedly struck a rocket assembly building in Kapustin Yar in Russia. The Kapustin Yar range is known as the birthplace of the Soviet space program. It's the second Ukrainian strike in two weeks targeting a Russian space facility. US Chief of Space Operations General Chance Saltzman announced that Air Marshal Paul Godfrey of the UK Royal Air Force is joining the space staff as Assistant CSO for future concepts and partnerships. In a notice to Guardians announcing the appointment, Saltzman reiterated that space is a team sport and that this is a significant step forward in promoting closer cooperation with an important ally. He stated that "operations in space are too complex, too risky, and too variable for us to go it alone. Partnerships are integral to the daily battle rhythms of the Space Force," and added this, "The Space Force must make partnerships the foundation of everything we do. Unity of effort is the starting point for our work rather than its outcome." And we can attest that the UK and US working together is definitely better in space. Oh yeah! And staying with International Cooperation in Space, 17 NATO members signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space or APPS program as part of the annual summit being held in Washington this week. Members are now moving to a five-year implementation phase of the project, during which allies will contribute more than $1 billion to leverage commercial and national space assets and to expand advanced exploitation capabilities. The organization created APPS last year with the intent to establish a virtual constellation which they call Akila, using both national and commercial space systems, sensors and data that can be utilized by NATO's command structure and other allies. And it'll come as no surprise that many European countries are looking to formalize their space strategy given the lead-up to and after this NATO summit. Ahead of the meeting in Washington DC, Sweden's government adopted the country's first defense and security space strategy. Sweden's Minister for Defense, Pall Jonsson, added to the news that "space is an arena for cooperation but is also increasingly competitive and contested." In concrete terms, this means that we need to be prepared to take technical, political, diplomatic and military measures when necessary. The overall objective of the strategy is to secure Sweden's defense and security interests in and through space. To achieve this, Sweden says it will establish itself as a significant and responsible space actor in the defense and security area through national and international activities. New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority has awarded Dawn Aerospace a certificate to fly the Mk. 2 Aurora at unlimited speeds, including supersonic up to 80,000 feet in altitude. This certification permits operations beyond visual line of sight without the need for restricted airspace. Dawn's Mk. 2 Aurora is a rocket-powered aircraft designed to be the first vehicle ever to fly to a 100-kilometer altitude twice in a single day. Dawn says this certification is the results of years of close cooperation between the company and local agencies. Together they've worked to understand how to safely integrate high-performance vehicles with existing airspace users, addressing the necessary vehicle and operational requirements. Scout Space has been selected to join DARPA's Bringing Classified Innovation to Defense and Government Systems Consortium, also known as BRIDGES. DARPA selected Scout based on the company's proposal outlining its approach to collaborating on advancing autonomous in-space threat response for space superiority. Scout will demonstrate software to support high-fidelity space domain awareness sensors and autonomous on-orbit maneuvers for the Department of Defense. The BRIDGES Consortium aims to mitigate the timelines that can potentially limit the DOD's ability to rapidly procure and employ innovative technology. The consortium will sponsor Scout for a facility clearance, providing access to classified work areas and networks. Additionally, Scout will participate in quarterly in-person meetings to interact with government personnel at classified levels. And Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo vehicle departed the International Space Station earlier today, ending a nearly six-month stay on the orbiting lab. The spacecraft named the SS Patricia Patti Hilliard Robertson, after a NASA astronaut who died in 2001 in a plane crash, is due to enter Earth's atmosphere on Saturday. It's filled with trash packed by the station crew and will meet a destructive re-entry when the vehicle will safely burn up in Earth's atmosphere. And that concludes our briefing for today. Heads to the selected reading section in our show notes to find links to further reading on all of the stories that we've mentioned. And today we've added stories on SpaceX debris in Canada, not new SpaceX debris though, the one that we already know about, a New York Times piece on the environmental impact of launches from Boca Chica, and an announcement from SAS. A Team Minors crew, tune in tomorrow for Team Minors Deep Space. Our show for extended interviews, special editions, and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. Tomorrow we'll have Maria's full chat with JD Dyes talking about rocket engine testing. Check it out while you're catching up on your chores, packing or unpacking like me from your summer vacation, or looking for an excuse to have some me time away from the family. You don't want to miss it. Our guest today is Holly Pascal, NASA engineer and founder of the Women's Aerospace Network. The network's inaugural award winners were announced last month, and so we asked Holly to tell us more about them. I'm incredibly humbled to be speaking about the Women's Space Awards. When we launched them, the Women's Aerospace Network was only a month and a half old. We didn't have a very large following. I was expecting to get maybe 20 nominees and a couple hundred votes. When the awards ended, it closed on Memorial Day, and we announced the winners. We had over 30,000 community votes, nominees across 35 countries, and almost 200 nominees. Okay, that is a lot. I mean, just that's amazing. So congratulations. That is huge. I mean, that just signals so many good things to me. The people are engaged, and they're super interested in this, but also they know so many incredible women deserve this recognition, and that they're deserving of these accolades. I think that's just incredible. Absolutely. By highlighting the achievements of women in the field, our goal was to inspire the next generation of leaders to reach higher and explore further. And Maria, a lot of these women have been sitting alone at the table by themselves for a really long time. And so with the awards, we wanted to just provide a recognition and amplify some of the voices too. In a lot of cases, there were some incredible women who are just forging new paths in the aerospace industry and really shaping it as a whole. So for example, one of the winners was Christine Jane Atienza, and she's the first Filipino analog astronaut. So a lot of these women are just paving the way for their country as a whole. For example, we had Dr. Katie Pearson, and she's a speech language pathologist. She developed a technique for accent modification to improve verbal language in aerospace professionals who speak English as a second language. So this proves that aerospace needs everyone across so many different disciplines. And if you follow your passion, there's a space for you in space. It's an incredible list of women. I remember when the list came out and every single one of them have incredible stories, incredible contributions to the field. I'm kind of in awe of each of them. I know we would be here a while to be like, "Let's go over each and every one of them." But you've just mentioned two incredible women. I feel like maybe we should just pick a bunch of them and tell me what you know about them and let's highlight them a little bit. Anyone else that you think we should be talking about is sort of like picking a favor of an incredible group of women. There's so many, Maria, so many. Oh my gosh. When we started, right, we started with four evaluators thinking that that would be enough. And then the awards kept growing and growing. We ended up with 12 evaluators in combination with community votes. And the biggest feedback I got from the evaluators was that it was so hard to choose because so many of these women are just out there just kicking butt and just making a name for themselves. It's amazing when I look at this list. You see a lot of people, again, as you've mentioned, all over the world doing things that are the first person to do something of what they are doing or founding their own organization that does something incredible and just doing incredible things within their career. They've got all sorts of military awards or they've won all sorts of scientific awards. All these accolades, I'm sort of speechless looking at them because it is truly amazing. And it's, again, very worthy that they're all being recognized. And I mean, my goodness, I can't even imagine trying to sort through all these incredible people and picking the women that we feel are the best when they're also amazing. I'm just like, where do we go from here? What do we do? Like, this is like, how do we do this again? That's amazing. Well, I'm definitely looking forward to the space awards for Fiscal Year 2025. They'll open back up in spring and hopefully one day we'll be able to have it in person. That would be incredibly exciting. That would be, for the women who have won this award, I mean, what has their reaction been like? I'm sure they're thrilled, but I mean, this is a very singular recognition for them. Oh my gosh. Yes, it's been beautiful to see how it's opened up doors and opportunities as well. So many of them have come back and shared how they were introduced to opportunities opening up for them, whether it's podcasts or articles or people reaching out to them just saying, "Hey, awesome job. Hey, you inspired me," or doors opening for them for research opportunities. That's awesome. And I think what's really, I don't know if everybody realizes this. I did when we were voting. I remember I voted, I was one of the people who voted also because I was like, these are all really worthy women. So I was like very happy to make a vote. And in some cases, I was kind of like, "Oh, this is almost impossible." The categories for the different areas of recognition, it's not like it's just like, "Hey, who's the best at space?" Or something. I mean, that's not how this works. I mean, there are a lot of fascinating categories. And some of the ones that I thought were really notable to me was student leadership, which I thought was very interesting to be highlighting that. To sort of give kudos to the women who are the young leaders, as the description says, but also entrepreneurship, which is something that is so valuable in the space world. And I still feel like we need to be giving a greater spotlight. It hasn't always been the focus as much, but I'm so glad to see that that was one of the many categories that you all highlighted. Oh, for sure. And with student leadership, it's incredibly exciting because by the time the next generation gets out of college, right? There's just going to be even more opportunities and things that don't exist yet. I was speaking with a group of middle schoolers the other week, and I was just sharing with them about NASA and telling them how they can really forge their own path. This one kid, his jaw just drops and his eyes open and he says, "Whoa, you mean I can be a space cop?" That's awesome. He had no idea. Holly, what has this whole experience been like for you? I mean, this is a huge undertaking and to see how much it has just taken off since you started it, this must be very gratifying. It is very humbling and beautiful to see. We do have an incredible team and board of advisors who helped carry us through, especially scaling the operation when we were expecting a couple hundred votes and ended up with so many. There is definitely a bumpy road, so I just want to thank all the participants as well and for coming to me when they did run into those bumpy things. The website went down for, I think it was like a whole day, the voting. We had so many votes, it totally crashed our whole list. You crashed the website? Oh no. What a great problem to have, but also, yeah, it's a pain when that happens, but it's so much interest. That's so fantastic. Yeah, I mean, there's going to be next year. I imagine, I mean, I'm sure you've got really cool plans for the next year because even just with this year, learning about all the different nominees, like I was seeing all the posts on social media as all the nominees are being rolled out and I was really enjoying learning about everyone who was nominated. I imagine you've got even more planned for next year. Absolutely. We're definitely going to have it bigger and better than ever. I'm excited to see how it evolves and I'm sure we'll open up the floor and hear some of the feedback of how last year went and what the community would like to see going forward. That's awesome. Was there anything else that we should leave our audience with that they should know about these awards either this year or next year? Feel free to check out the winners of 2024 at awards.women's aerospace.com and please feel free to send me an email or connect with me over social media at women's aerospace.com. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Now, NASA says the debate is over, but for many of us who love space, the debate is definitely ongoing about what to do with the International Space Station once its mission ends in 2030. NASA is adamant that it will be de-orbited in a responsible way with a SpaceX tug bringing the station to a responsible demise over the Pacific Ocean. Many other folks, myself included, would love it if somehow, some way, we could figure out somehow a way to preserve the ISS in a different orbit for posterity without it causing long-term debris issues. Lots of impassioned ideas and pleas there, but no matter what people think should or should not happen to the ISS, there is one thing everyone is in strong agreement about. We cannot have a repeat of what happened to Skylab. Oh, Skylab. Oh, Skylab. And what happened to it happened 45 years ago today. The space station then defunct made a very unexpected early de-orbit several years before it was supposed to go, and that caused quite a big problem as its de-orbit path brought it right over populated areas, including, namely, Australia. On July 11, 1979, Skylab started to break up in the atmosphere largely over the Indian Ocean, but its debris path was very long, 2,450 miles long, in fact, and at the end of it, it did rain down chunks of itself over Western Australia. And before we cast aspersions at NASA for this one, this was definitely not an intentional incident. Skylab was supposed to come down in a gentle de-orbit by 1983, but an unexpected bout of space weather basically bumped it down and caused it to come down four years early. Cue the chicken little, Skylab is falling jokes, Skylab repellent, protective helmets, Skylab parties, Skylab mania, jokes galore. Now chunks of Skylab were recovered in small outback towns, many of whom heard the sonic boom from the space station's re-entry, including the town of Esperance, which still has an oxygen tank and a titanium tank on display from Skylab in its town museum. And most importantly, very thankfully, nobody was hurt by the falling debris. I would like one of those Skylab helmets, though, at some point. They look pretty cool. They're paper, though, just to be clear. They don't do a whole lot for you. What were they going to do? Boring. Well, that's it for Team Minus for July 12th, 2024, brought to you by N2K's 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 that we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show and we really hope you do, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send us an email to space@n2k.com. We're privileged that N2K's 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 Peltzman, Antre Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. And I'm your host, Maria Varmasas. Thank you for listening. We will see you next week. [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] [RUMBLING] [BLANK_AUDIO]