Falcon 9 is back in business.

[MUSIC] We cannot stress it enough how much the industry has transformed over the last few years and it's mainly down to the workhorse that is the Falcon 9. No one expected to see an anomaly ground the rocket, pending an investigation. But earlier this month, that's exactly what happened. We were expecting it to take weeks, maybe even months to resolve. But I guess when you're launching every few days, it does give you an immense advantage of collecting data on flight performance. So bravo SpaceX for acting quickly to get the Falcon 9 back in business again. All right, Alice, hit me. >> Got a question for you, Maria. >> All right. >> Yeah. How do you know if a star is alive? >> How do I know if a star is alive? Because it's sparkle, it's bad. >> [LAUGH] >> You check its pulsar. >> My lord. >> That was a grown, that was a grown. That was a proper grown. >> [LAUGH] >> So bad. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> T-minus. >> 20 seconds to L-O-N. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Open aboard. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Today is July 26, 2024. I'm Maria Varmasas. >> I'm Alice Caruth and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] Falcon 9 is cleared to return to launch. Perseverance may have found evidence of ancient life on Mars. Five rivers analytics selected for a USSF IDIQ contract. And our guest today is Kirsten Whittingham, president of Max Space. Kirsten is newly appointed to the role at the Space Habitat's company, and she'll be sharing her vision for Max Space with Maria later in the show. [MUSIC] >> It's finally Friday, Alice. Happy Friday. >> Woo hoo. >> Let's talk about what's going on in space, shall we? It's the news that the entire space community has been waiting for. SpaceX's Falcon 9 is back in business. The launch schedule can resume, hooray. SpaceX says it submitted its mishap report to the Federal Aviation Administration regarding Falcon 9's launch anomaly on July 11th, and the company's investigation team, with oversight from the FAA, was able to identify the most probable cause of the mishap, and associated corrective actions to ensure the success of future missions. The issue happened during the first burn of Falcon 9's second stage engine. The cause seems to have been a liquid oxygen leak developed within the insulation around the upper stage engine. The report says that the cause of the leak was identified as a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicle's oxygen system. We all know that being overworked can cause us to crack, so it should come as no surprise that the crack was due to fatigue. Although in this case, it was caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line. So, for corrective actions, SpaceX says that for the near-term Falcon launches, the failed sense line and sensor on the second stage engine will be removed. The sensor is not used by the flight safety system and can be covered by alternate sensors already present on the engine. The design change has already been tested at SpaceX's Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, with enhanced qualification analysis and oversight by the FAA. So, the question everyone wants to know, when can we see the workhorse of the space industry back in action? The answer is, as early as 12.21 am tonight, which I guess is technically tomorrow, SpaceX is planning on launching another batch of Starlink V2 mini-satellites to low-Earth orbit from Florida pending FAA approval. Good for them. Okay, who had on their bingo card this year that we might find signs of life on Mars? You? Me? No. Well, I certainly didn't. That statement may be overstepping the mark a little bit, but the new images of rocks on Mars indicate that the red planet may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago. More research is needed before the findings can be verified. The scientists on NASA's Perseverance Rover have been looking at a vein-filled rock that they've called the Chiava Falls. The team say that the arrowhead-shaped rock contains fascinating traits that suggest Mars was home to microscopic life in the distant past. Perse's onboard Sherlock, which stands for Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman, Luminiscence for Organics and Chemicals, instrument, indicates that the rocks collected contain organic compounds. I mean, if NASA is looking for a reason to continue the Mars sample return program, then bingo, we've found it. Anyone else had bowie in their heads all day? Because they're life on Mars. Akeema's subsidiary, Five Rivers Analytics, has been awarded the Satellite Control Network Tracking Station Operations Remote Site and Mission Partner Support Contract, also known as STORMS, to support the U.S. Space Force. The indefinite delivery indefinite quantity, or IDIQ contract, has a 10-year period of performance and total contract value of $480 million if all options are exercised. L3 Harris has reported financial reports for the second quarter of the year, a company reported revenue of $5.3 billion, up 13%. L3 Harris says the increase is primarily driven by the acquisition of aerojet rocket dyne and 1% total organic growth from increased demand for tactical and broadband communication products in the communication system segment. Growth was also driven by continued demand in space systems and classified Intel and Cyber programs within the space and airborne system segment. Satellite manufacturing company Terran Orbital has received the certificate of occupancy for its new assembly facility in Irvine, California. The facility spans 94,000 square feet and is situated on a five-acre site. The building still needs to complete construction and outfitting on the interior. Terran Orbital says it will significantly increase the company's space vehicle assembly, integration and testing capabilities by over three times the company's current capacity. Over to the UK now and the National Audit Office has published a highly critical assessment of the government's progress on implementing the UK's national space strategy. The auditing body went further to question the ROI on the UK's investment in the European Space Agency. The report found that while directing space spending through ESA gives UK space companies and academics access to large-scale space programs which would be challenging to replicate nationally, it found that "the UK does not yet receive contracts proportionate to the value of the funding it provides." Although no longer part of the European Union, the UK is the fourth largest contributor to ESA, accounting for about 9% of its non-EU funding. Other non-EU members of ESA include Canada and Norway. The UK Space Agency spends about three-quarters of its budget on ESA programs and the previous government pledged £1.84 billion in funding between 2023 and 2027. The report found that the UK received only 93 pence back in contracts for every £1 allocated to the European Space Agency. Other EU states have found to have received much better returns on investment. And we are finishing off today's report with news that the United Arab Emirates has won the bid to host Space Research Conference, COSBAR, in 2028. It's the first time that the event will be held in the Middle East. This year's edition, held in Athens, Greece, finished earlier this week. You can always find links to the selected reading section of our show notes to dig deeper into the stories we've mentioned during our briefing. We've included three extra links in there today, covering US ground station preparations for a boom in space-based intelligence, and announcements for a logistics support contractor NASA's Marshall Flight Center, and a report from the Mitchell Institute. This one covers small satellites answering the call for space superiority. It's only 25 pages, so light reading for your weekend. 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 the amazing Jonathan McDowell talking about his work on the Chandra mission and tracking space debris. Check it out while you're heading to the store to get groceries or cleaning up the BBQ for a weekend cookout or recovering from the first week back at school like Alice is. You don't want to miss it. Our guest today is Kirsten Winningham, President of MaxSpace. Kirsten has just been appointed to her new role, and I asked her to tell me a little bit more about her journey to get there. I like to tell people I've done a little bit of everything in aerospace and events, and it's been great. I have loved getting to see a little bit of everything that the industry has to offer. So I started out as a project manager for a defense contractor and got to light things on fire and do rocket test fires as well. So it was really cool. And that was my introduction to what is project management and what is managing the customers. Lighting things on fire sounds like a really good project. We were doing free entry tests, and we just got to test the ablation of the missile tips, basically, to see how they reacted into that hypersonic reentry. But yeah, we literally just lit things on fire. It was an arcator. It's much more technical than that, but yes. Pretty fun job. And I've had a lot of fun jobs. And I moved from that into NASA's fly control, where I supported the Space Shuttle program as it was wrapping up, and then moved over into the ISS program to experience NASA. And I moved from that into back into more program management, where I helped Sirius develop their new business jet, as you know at the time, and helped it get from design all the way into production. So that's my aviation background and my production background. And then I got to get to Raytheon's Pratt and Whitney Division, where I did defense support for international air forces as well as the United States Air Force. And that's same at program management. That was my introduction to really working with international governments. And it turns out I love it. I love it. Then after COVID kind of hit, I got the opportunity to go to AXIEM, where I started to really combine all of this experience. I have this space flight experience for my days as a NASA flight controller, and this international government experience. I had humongous P&L profit and loss that I operated at Pratt and Whitney that is bigger than a lot of businesses, honestly. So I brought all that experience to AXIEM to help them stand up how to support international governments and how to do those contracts with them and how to make that a space flight operation. And how do you manage this business? So that was really this defining moment of now I'm starting to really pull all these pieces together and smack space opportunity to be their present is another step in that direction as well. Saying, okay, I do have all of this experience working in sort of the business development background. And I had to touch into marketing communications and understand the space flight operations. I do have an engineering background. I understand the government accounting, all the things that start to go. All the things. Yes, yes. But all the things that go into running the company and sort of understanding how we need to structure that and stand up the organizations and get the company off and running in the right direction. So super exciting to be part of MacSpace and see where we can take this. Yes, congratulations. I mean, you were named president just earlier this month. So congratulations on being president of MacSpace. I'm curious, when you were sort of heard about this opportunity, what about MacSpace made you go, I absolutely want to take on that really cool opportunity. So there are two factors. There's the factor of what the product is and then the factor of the founders. So the product being this game changing product that's really, I believe can revolutionize the space economy. Metal modules are very heavy and expensive to produce and it takes a long time and launch costs are high. And I just think our product can really revolutionize industry. We can help other companies get to their profitability sooner. The investors will get the return on their investment sooner. So I think it's a game changer and that's one reason I wanted to be involved. But I didn't know the founders, obviously, until we started the interview process. And they're two very different people. Maxim is this, I keep joking, he's like the most interesting man in the world. He is an engineer, but yet he does all these risking hobbies, which seems sort of counterintuitive. And he's testing out products while he's doing it. And it's just, he's just really a unique individual. And he brings all of this inflatable expertise and background to the company. His vision is why MacSpace exists. And then you have Aaron, who is the serial entrepreneur. He was one of the founders for MacSpace. He's got other companies. And so he's kind of got this business background and this mindset of how to do the investing. I thought it is so interesting to have a founding team that first of all had actual experience in what they're trying to produce already. That's great. But then these two men are so different. And yet they behave when they're around each other like brothers. And it's just very nice to see. And it felt good. So I'm excited to be part of it just because of the two of them. Yeah. Well, that kind of team and that kind of dynamic is so important. I would love to hear more about sort of, I know you just started, so I'm not trying to be too presumptuous. But as you're thinking about business development for MacSpace, for these incredible inflatable habitats, who are you looking to work with? There are a lot of options out there. So I'm curious sort of what markets you think would be especially, go after this opportunity. And we're not limiting ourselves just to habitats. Obviously, that is a portion. And I'm just picking up on the question there. So there are some against applications where maybe it doesn't need to be crude at all. And maybe there are other applications that don't need a crew. I was literally just talking to somebody right before this about maybe some uncrewed concepts that could be a really good game changer for the space economy. So I never thought of that. Yeah. It has a space that can be as big or as small as you need. And so whatever that application is, we can support that. I know Erin, our co-founder, would love to be part of like a lunar habitation because he's Mr. Moon. That's one of his nicknames. So giving it onto a program where we can be part of the lunar programs is obviously also very attractive. And we don't mind being a supplier to others as well so that the space stations that are under development, happy to provide them some modules that are more volume for less money and whatever it is that they need. We are one of those types of companies that's very happy to figure out what the user needs and then figure out how we cater to that requirement. That makes a lot of sense. It also speaks to the versatility of what you all are developing. So that's fantastic. You mentioned some things I never would have thought of those applications. So I'm just, it's going to be, I say this a lot, it's really cool living in the future. I get to talk to cool folks like yourself and I hear about these things that you all are developing. I'm like, that is just amazing. It's just so neat. Five, 10 years from now, what are you hoping to see? Like what are you hoping Max Space will have achieved in that time? That's a great question. I hope that we have achieved, first of all, I want to go back to that sort of living and working on the moon. And that's maybe less about Max Space goal and just a human entity goal. I would love to see a living and working on the moon and I would love for us to be part of that and providing more volume for the other people so they don't have to live in a little crammed space together on the moon. We can give them more about, you know, mansion on the moon or something like that. Yep. Or at least a very roomy lab. But yeah, for Max Space specifically, I would like to see our applications making a difference for humanity. That's, I think, why a lot of us get into the space economy is that we recognize the benefits of space, whether that is the development of the prosthetic organs or development of new drugs on orbit, the things that are harder to do around Earth. And I would love for our modules to be the reason that those advancements happened, whether that's because people used our modules because they are less expensive and so they went there or just the fact that they needed the volume for whatever that application is, helping humanity. Again, like I said, a lot of us get into that. If we have done something like that in five to 10 years, that is success. That's fantastic. Well, thank you for that great conversation. Kirsten, thank you so much for joining me today. And it's been so wonderful to meet you, especially I know you just started. So like you're such at such an exciting and very busy time, I'm sure. So thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Before we conclude, I want to give you the floor. If there's anything that you want to say to the audience that I didn't ask about that, or you just want to do address, I want to make sure I give you that opportunity. Yeah, I just want to make sure that everybody knows that even though we're talking about this game-changing inflatable infrastructure, this is not new. And I think a lot of people don't know this. There have been inflatable modules that have been before, and it was Maxim, our co-founder, that helped those modules be developed and designed and launched. There's even an inflatable module already on IXS. And again, Maxim had his fingers in that one as well. It's the bean module, so people can look that up. So it's not necessarily new technology. We just really want to advance it even more and bring it into more applications and make sure that we are using it to its fullest advantage. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Have you ever taken those online quizzes asking you to tell the difference between a real photo and an AI-generated one? Well, if you haven't lately, well, if you haven't lately, please leave your unfounded confidence at the door, because I can almost guarantee you you will find it a lot harder than you think. The uncanny valley has gotten a lot more canny. And this is a growing problem, because plenty of people with not-so- great intentions are using these increasingly convincing AI-generated photos of real and fake people to do all sorts of not-so-great things, like an adversarial nation-state hacker infiltrating a cybersecurity company by posing as a job applicant using an AI-enhanced headshot photo. For more on that, definitely listen to today's Cyber Wire episode. But chalk one up for the astronomers, because they've got an unexpected win in the battle against AI-generated fake photos. No one saw this one coming, but yeah, astronomers won DeepFakes Zero. Adejumoke O'Olaabi, an MSc student at the University of Hall, researched how a common tool used by astronomers to study galaxies can be easily repurposed by tools that try to detect AI fakes. By studying the reflection of light sources in the eyes, and my fellow artists know this one, the tiny bright dots of reflected light in the eyeball commonly called a catchlight are often the final touch in a portrait, as they're what makes it really seem real, the spark of life, if you will. And in real life, because we humans are for the most part pretty symmetrical, the catchlight in the eyes usually are symmetrical too. And AI-generated portraits do have catchlights in the eyes, but they're often just ever so slightly off. And as of the time of this show, AI portraits don't seem to care about getting those catchlights in the eyes exactly symmetrical. O'Olaabi's technique used something called the "genie coefficient," which in astronomy measures how light is distributed in images of galaxies. But in this case, was used to measure how light was distributed in images of eyes. For the time being anyway, this could be a helpful way to detect AI image fakes, but as with so many things in AI's development, you can bet that AI models will be updated in no way to counter this catchlight flaw. But just goes to show, solutions to new problems can come from unexpected places, even seemingly unrelated fields in science. A stromers to the rescue! Not a phrase I get to say every day. That's super cool. Now that's it for Team Minus for July 26th, 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 our podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our show, 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 are 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 Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. 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 Varmasus. Thanks for listening. We will see you on Monday. [Music]