[MUSIC] NASA says sometimes news comes fast and sometimes news comes slow. With Starliner, it's been a long drag when it comes to the decision making process. The US Space Agency says they've been evaluating all options for Boeing's CST 100 crew. Do they come home in the Starliner capsule? Do they come home in another? That call is still yet to come. At some point, Butch and Sunny will be coming home. We just still don't know when or how. [MUSIC] Today is August 7th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmasus and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] NASA pushes back the crew nine mission launch. China launches the first satellites in its thousand sales constellation. Firefly signs a second multi-launch agreement with L3 Harris. And our guest today is George Kessler, director of projects for NASA's Hunch program. George walked me through some of the high school projects that have been created and sent to space through the program. So definitely stick around to hear more. [MUSIC] Happy Wednesday, T-minus crew. We're kicking off today's Intel briefing with news from the ISS. NASA held a media call today to update everyone on the crew flight test and provide space station missions updates. We've all been waiting with bated breath to find out what's happening with Starliner. They've completed the ground testing, there's been hot fires on the orbiting lab. But when will Butch and Sunny be coming home? That we still don't know. It is great that NASA and Boeing have done a lot of testing and data collection following these tests. Lots of data, means lots of work to get through, and they are still evaluating what it all means. NASA maintains that they have a lot of confidence in the thrusters following the ground testing, but they need to understand what's happening in orbit with the thruster issues that the Starliner has experienced since its launch in early June. Wow, early June, huh? They say that they're still planning to return Butch Willmore and Sunny Williams on the Starliner as soon as possible. But they have done plenty of work to prepare for other possibilities, including additional supplies to join the next mission crew, so they can stay on board for a longer period of time, and also the possibility of an uncrewed return of the capsule. So the knock on effect of all this mission in decision, which is what it seems to be at this point, is that NASA and SpaceX are now targeting no earlier than Tuesday, September 24th for the launch of the agency's next crew nine mission to the International Space Station. This mission will be launching from Pad 40 at Kennedy Space Center for the first time. Task orders are also in place for changing this mission just to two members, just in case Sunny and Butch need a return with the Dragon Crew 9. Crew 8 are due to leave about a week later. So one must wonder, how do Butch and Sunny feel about all this? NASA says they're ready to support whatever is needed. They could come home in the coming weeks, they could stay up there for another six months. We should know more sometime in mid-August. At least their undergarments have finally arrived. Moving on, China launched the first 18 satellites for its thousand sales constellation yesterday. The constellation, also referred to as the G60 satellite link plan, aims to deploy more than 15,000 low Earth orbit satellites to provide extensive communication services and broadband internet services. The idea is to create a constellation that will rival Starlink, providing broadband internet worldwide to potentially include military users. Shanghai Spacecom satellite technology, who are leading this project, previously completed the launch of five experimental satellites. It looks like Leo is about to get a lot more crowded as they are planning to deploy 600 satellites this year alone. Firefly Aerospace has signed a second multi-launch agreement with L3 Harris technologies. This new agreement is for up to 20 launches on Firefly's Alpha rocket, including two to four missions per year from 2027 to 2031, depending on customer needs. Under the new agreement, Firefly's Alpha rocket will launch L3 Harris spacecraft into low Earth orbit from Firefly's SLC2 launch site at the Vandenberg Space Force Base. Firefly already has an existing multi-launch agreement with L3 Harris for three Alpha missions in 2026. Astrobotic has been selected by NASA for a small business innovation research award worth approximately $150,000 to develop an extra large vertical solar array technology, also known as a VSAT XL, for the moon. This new array will build on the 10 kilowatt lunar VSAT already in development at Astrobotic under an existing NASA contract. VSAT XL is part of Astrobotic's Luna Grid system, which is a power, generation, and distribution service for long-term human and robotic operations at the South Pole of the moon. Rocket Lab and Kongsberg Satellite Services, which is also known as KSAT, are developing a new global ground station service that enables efficient and reliable communications for future launches. Rocket Lab says it has worked closely with KSAT to co-engineer a new satellite communication service that meets the critical requirements of future missions. KSAT says its network has been scaled to meet both Rocket Lab's launch and spacecraft operations and the demands of the space industry to ensure optimal performance, minimal latency, and robust support throughout the mission lifecycle. OrbitFabs' rapidly-attachable fluid transfer interface, or RAFTI refueling port, has been designated by the US Space Force's Space Systems Command as a refueling interface for in-space fueling of military satellites. Space Systems Command's Systems Engineering Review Board assessed that RAFTI meets the technical qualifications to support a wide range of US government space missions. ScoutSpace has been selected to participate in the US Space Systems Command's Space Domain Awareness Tools Application and Processing Lab, also known as the SDA TAP Lab, Apollo Accelerator Cohort #4. The SDA TAP Lab is an initiative designed to enhance the capabilities of space domain awareness by addressing key challenges in the field. And as part of this effort, Scout will leverage its expertise in in-space observation and data analytics to develop solutions that detect and characterize changes in satellite orientation, including both satellite bus and payload movements. And after eight years of leading Axiom space, Mike Suffredini has decided to transition from CEO to a position on the company's board of directors. Suffredini says his decision is for personal reasons and his transition is effective as of August 9th. He added in a press release that he will remain as an advisor to ensure a smooth transition and continue his role as a board member. We wish you the best of luck. And that is it for your hump day intel briefing. Head to the selected reading section of our show notes for further information on all the stories that we've mentioned. We've also added announcements for you from Impulse Space and ExoLaunch. Hey, T-Minus Crew, if you find this podcast useful, please do us a favor and share a five star rating and a short review in your favorite podcast app. It'll help other space professionals like you to find the show and join the T-Minus Crew. Thank you so much for your support, everybody. We really appreciate it. [MUSIC] Last week, I met George Kessler, director of projects of NASA Hunch at the ISS RDC event. He had an amazing booth and table full of the coolest doodads I'd seen in a while. And so I asked George to explain more to me about what we were looking at and more about the NASA Hunch program. We get high school students to design and build equipment for the space program. And so I work in one of eight different programs, mines design and prototype. We also have soft goods. We have software. We have hardware where they machine components for us. We have culinary. We have biomedical. And we have video. It's an incredible array. So we're here at ISS RDC and there is, you have an amazing table out here with all these fantastic creations. And I was just kind of blown away by the creativity and the resourcefulness of what these high school students have come up with. Could you walk me through some of them? So one of them that I have is a tape dispenser for the space station. This was designed by a couple of different schools. And then we put the ideas together. So if you imagine we have kind of, you can imagine two tape dispensers kind of pushed together. And then we have a piece that comes off so that it attaches to the seat track in the space station. And most people would say, well, it's a tape dispenser. It's not that complicated. But in space, if you pull off a big piece of tape, without gravity, the static electricity on it will just pull it right back onto itself. And now you've got a lot of plastic. Very useless. Right. And so it was important that our astronauts be able to use one hand to be able to get this tape so that they can grab the other side. And so being able to attach it to the seat track, some of the attachment mechanisms that are on the space station was critical. And so it was pretty exciting. So that took-- we had several different schools that came together. And then we had schools that did the machining for us. And so it was a pretty good deal for us. That's awesome. And is this in use now on the space station? Yeah. As a matter of fact, we flew up one. And the crew liked it so much, they asked for six more. Wow. And so we're supplying six more to get up to the station now. That's incredible. High school students made that. That's just so cool. All right. So we've got a couple of other-- I mean, there's everything here is cool. Yeah. So all right. So we have a monopod. So just like on Earth, you can use a monopod for your cameras. Well, we had our students take an off-the-shelf monopod by Monfrotto. And we attached what we call a ball clamp to the bottom of it. And what it does is it clamps around a handrail and allows the monopod to swivel around, kind of like what you would do on the ground. Right. Right. You could pivot it around to get the angle that you want or whatever. Well, now the astronauts can attach it to the handrail, pivot the way they want, and then it stays in that location so that their camera is pointing right where they want. Their biggest thing was all of their camera shots were down low or up high. They couldn't get anything in the middle. And so this monopod allows them to take a picture right down the center of the modules. And it helped out their photography a lot. And it looks like some parts are machined, some parts are 3D printed. It's very ingenious the way that they sort of put those different components together. And that's really exciting. So we have students that do the machining for us. But we also have students out in Georgia that do a lot of 3D printing for us. And they are-- this is-- it's not just any 3D printing. So it has to be printed in Ultem, which is-- it's a very high temperature plastic. And so it's non-flammable. And we have students there that help out with, how do you-- what direction do you print it so you don't have a whole bunch of support material? And then they have students that are really good at cleaning out all of that support material to be able to make it a flight item. So it's pretty exciting. It looks-- I mean, nothing about this looks amateur at all. I mean, it just-- it looks absolutely incredible high-end stuff. So-- That makes us all feel really good. It just-- it does. I mean, I've been around a lot of 3D prototypes in my life. This is really, really high-end stuff. So I want to talk about the bag. Oh, sure. And the soft goods, too. So the bag is also just so cool. So please tell me about this bag. Sure. The trash bags that they use on the space station are kind of a lime green nylon. And because nylon is still considered flammable on the space station, it has to be covered with Nomex. So it has to be in a Nomex container so that if fire breaks out, it's not going to catch fire very easily. It'd be very difficult. And so initially, NASA sent up the nylon bags, and they sent up these nylon containers to go for them to go in. But they were made out of white. And so when you're playing with trash, obviously, they got dirty pretty quick. But they also had a lot of Velcro. So it was difficult for them to get in and out with their trash. And so we came up with something where not only did we have a Nomex bag that protects the nylon, but then we also found-- we had some students that went to Thingiverse. And they found this awesome device. And if you can imagine-- Can we hold your mic for a second? Yeah, I have an idea. So imagine like an iris for a camera. And the idea is you open it up so you can hear that a little bit maybe. And so it opens up like feathers on a pedal and allows it to-- as the pedals come together, they pinch the edges of our trash bag, and they help keep the stink in. So you don't have smelly trash being a big problem. Yeah, it cinches it. The aperture sort of cinches it together. That's exactly-- yeah, it's a really smart design. Like when you see it, it instantly makes sense, but it's not something you would instantly think of necessarily. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I really got to hand it to students because we start off in-- good engineers start with stuff that already works, and then they modify to make it what they need. That's right, yeah. And that's what our students did. So I was very proud of that. That's a fantastic design. Now, the other thing that I was really impressed with was we use some lock line. It's like this blue tubing material. And it allows you to kind of bend and move the trash bag to any kind of position that you want. I love that. So then when it attaches to the seat track, it's a one-handed seat track mechanism. And so it comes off and goes on really easily. That's awesome. Yeah, that's sliding right off very easily. Yeah, one-handed. And a lot of the different components-- oh, there you go. Thank you. I mean, I recognize that from like bendy tripods that I've seen. That's exactly right. Yeah, it's just, again, the ingenuity of putting these things together is just really hats off to these young folks because that's really, really smart. Please tell me about the softwares that you would walk me through that early about the foot pads. Yeah, yeah. Sure, OK. I love that. So when the astronauts float through the space station, they don't use the bottom of their feet. They only use the top of their feet. And they use their top of the feet as they float past a handrail. They hook their foot under it. But the problem is that the top of your foot doesn't have any padding. And so they end up getting sores on it. And so they've got calluses after a while, and it can be sore for a long time. So the astronauts came back and they said, could you guys make us some foot pads where you put the pad on the top? And so what we did was we got some leather, and we got some-- it's like a-- it's a NOMACS wool. And so we've got a lot of padding. And you can imagine it as kind of an upside down slipper. The bottom of it's real thin and empty, so it doesn't get hot. And the top is nice and thick. So astronauts don't get sweaty feet, and they don't get sore feet. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's these quality of life improvements that are-- this is not minor. I mean, that's-- our human bodies were not designed to do a lot of these things. So we need these adaptations. I just-- these are really fantastic creations. And that high school students are solving these very real problems is just endlessly just inspiring to me that they're doing that. I just love this. Oh, I love it too. And let me just point out. Yeah, yeah. So we have-- Hunch is the sole provider of the ISS locker for the experiments that fly up. And so our students machine a lot of these components. And maybe you can hear some of them. Little tings and whatever. So these are all metal parts that our students are using. They machine them in their shops at school. Yeah, these are nice machines. And they send these parts to us. Yeah. They do the initial inspection and send it to us. And then we do another inspection afterwards. And they get used on all of these lockers. And they fly to space. So I mean, the high schools that are these mainly-- are some of them VOTEC or some of them-- like, what are the different type of-- There is a mixture. So we have some of them that are VOTEC. And they call them different things in different states. So we're in-- so for design and prototype, I've got 27 states that we're working with. Whereas when you start adding up all the other programs, we're in 40 states. That's amazing. And so we have parts coming from Michigan, from Vermont, Georgia, Texas, California, lots of different places. A lot of these students probably didn't know that they could have this real world, real space impact with what they're learning now. That's right. Now let me show you one more. Yeah, yeah, please. Yeah. And I'm loving it too. This is awesome. So we also have a sewing program. And one of the mainstays that we have right now is the-- Oh, sure, here we go. So and here you hear the Velcro. So we have a-- it's a hygiene kit that every astronaut receives before they fly. So imagine you've got your toothbrush, and your toothpaste, and your deodorant. Well, it has to fit in something that's not going to let it float around all over and get lost. And so our students make these little pockets that go inside of a folder. And then there's Velcro on different sides of it so that they can-- so the astronauts can fit it on the wall while they're doing their cleaning up. All of their stuff is waiting for them. And so we have students that are making these pockets and then the outer portions. And they all get shipped over to Johnson Space Center. We check them out to make sure that they're good. And then they're assembled into a kit for every astronaut to fly. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] We'll be right back. Welcome back. The European Space Agency needs you. Calling all citizen scientists, ESA has launched the Galaxy Zoo. Calling on your input to help identify the shapes of thousands of galaxies in images taken by the Euclid Space Telescope. These classifications will help scientists answer questions about how the shapes of galaxies have changed over time and what caused these changes and why. Euclid plans to image hundreds of thousands of distant galaxies. And for the next six years, the spacecraft is expected to send around 100 gigs of data back to Earth every day. That is a lot of data. And labeling that through human effort alone is incredibly difficult. That's why the Galaxy Zoo needs you. This citizen science project on the Zooniverse platform encourages members of the public to help classify the shapes of galaxies. Euclid will release its first catalogs of data to the scientific community starting in 2025. But in the meantime, any volunteer on the Galaxy Zoo project can have a glimpse at previously unseen images from the telescope. This feels like kind of a fun cloud watching project. What shape do you see? Will there be another pillar of creation? A rose shape or maybe a cat's eye galaxy? Oh, I have a feeling you know what we're going to be doing in our spare time here at T-minus. [MUSIC PLAYING] And that's it for T-minus for August 7, 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. You can email us at space@n2k.com or submit the survey in the show notes. Your feedback ensures we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. N2K's strategic workforce intelligence optimizes the value of your biggest investment, your people. We make you smarter about your team while making your team smarter. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth, our associate producer as 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 Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. And I'm your host, Maria Varmasas. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [MUSIC PLAYING] T-minus. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC]
