Infinite Space.

It's International Infinity Day today. It's International Infinity Day today. It's International Infinity Day today. It's International Infinity Day today. It's International Infinity Day today. It's International Infinity Day today. And what is that you ask? Well, it's a day that was started in 1987 with the great life through art, philosophy, and science. Each year on the eighth day of the eighth month, the Earth celebrates the eternal sign, you know, an eight sideways. We have eight planets in our solar system. It takes eight minutes for the sun's light to reach the Earth. The Beatles sing of eight days a week. Okay, so we're not really sure about that one either. But maybe we should take today to remember that space and the universe are infinite. We are really just a little blue dot in the vastness of space after all. Today is August 8th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmasas and this is T-minus. [Music] Polaris Dawn targets August 26th for launch. Dawn Aerospace completes another flight test campaign of the Mk. II spacecraft. Rocket Lab schedules its next electron lift off. And our guest today is Dr. Kelly Hastin, commander of the last crew health and performance exploration analog mission, better known as Chpia, which ended on July 6th, 2024. She has some fascinating insights to share about their mission. So stick around for the second part of the show. [Music] Happy Thursday, everybody. Let's take a look at today's space briefing, shall we? It's no surprise anyone here that SpaceX have taken to Elon Musk's other company, X, to share the news that their Polaris Dawn mission is scheduled to launch on August 26th. Polaris Dawn is a planned private human spaceflight mission operated by SpaceX and is the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program. The crewed flight to low-Earth orbit plans to feature the first-ever private spacewalk. The crew members are billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who will command the mission and has financed the Polaris program, pilot Scott Kidd Poteet, who is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, and mission specialist Sarah Gillis and Anna Mennon, both of whom are SpaceX engineers. The mission, like the Inspiration 4, which Isaacman participated in, in 2021, will be in free orbit. In other words, not joining up with the ISS. And we're not sure there would be room up there at this point, given yesterday's update on the Starliner. Now, Polaris Dawn was originally due to launch in 2022, but understandably faced a series of delays. Nevertheless, we wish them the absolute best of luck as they complete final preparations before launch in just 18 days. And staying with the Dawn theme -- okay, might be a little bit of a stretch, but hang with us here -- Dawn Aero Space have completed another flight test campaign of the Mark II rocket-powered aircraft. The campaign dubbed Campaign 2-2 -- very original -- saw three flights completed in late July. In Flight 3, Mark II achieved a maximum speed and altitude of Mach .92 and 50,000 feet. That is three times and five times, respectively, of what Dawn had achieved in the previous campaign. Dawn says it plans to fly supersonic in Campaign 2-3, which is scheduled for September. Rocket Lab has scheduled the launch for its 52nd Electron Mission, which will deploy a single satellite for American Space Tech company, Capella Space. This latest Electron launch comes just eight days after the previous launch of Electron on August 3. The mission is scheduled to lift off during a 14-day window that opens on August 11 from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The mission will deploy Capella's Acadia III SAR satellite, a synthetic aperture radar satellite for Earth imagery and observation. And there has been a slew of financial updates shared over the last 24 hours, so please bear with us on this one as we run through all of these updates. Let's start with ViASAT that works on fiscal years and then run through the second quarter updates. So ViASAT, as I'm sure many of you expected, have been performing well. Their Q1 fiscal year 2025 results yielded stronger than expected year-over-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth. They have reported revenue of 1.1 billion US dollars in the quarter, which has increased 44% year-over-year, driven by the contribution from Inmarsat. Even their losses look good with a Q1 fiscal year 2025 net loss of 33 million dollars compared to a net loss of 77 million US dollars for the same time last year. You can read more about their forecasting and business plan by following the link in our show notes. Okay, so that was ViASAT. Now on to second quarter financial results from Redwire, MDA Space, BlackSky, and Space Tourism company Virgin Galactic. The first three, Redwire, MDA Space, and BlackSky, reported incredible increases in revenue compared to the same time last year. Redwire and BlackSky themselves reported at or near 30% increases to revenue, and MDA Space for its part showed a solid 23% increase this year. More impressively, MDA Space reported a backlog of 4.6 billion US dollars at quarter-end, which was up 318% compared to Q2 2023. And Virgin Galactic reported that they doubled their revenue from 2 million to 4 million dollars comparing Q2 2024 to Q2 2023. However, Virgin Galactic's net loss for the quarter ran at 94 million. The company is still waiting for their new spacecraft to be built, but they say that the Delta class is on track for commercial service starting in 2026. All right, so that's Financial News. Moving on from that, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is working with the Space Force to test and prototype new spacecraft concepts. The partnership aims to launch its first experimental satellites as soon as 2026. AFRL created the Rapid Architecture Prototyping and Integrated Development, or just Rapid Lab, in 2022 to partner with the Space Force's various architecture and system design organizations to ring out ideas for future on-orbit capabilities. AFRL's Rapid Lab is supporting the Space Warfighting Analysis Center, or SWAC, for short, to determine whether its plans for a future network of data transport satellites are feasible. And we mentioned about a month ago, you might remember this, that PLD Space plans to build its own launch facility at ESA's Space Port in French Guiana. The latest development is that PLD Space plans to start building launch facilities for its Miura 5 rocket in October. Here's hoping that they stay on schedule for their launch plans. And that concludes today's briefing. Check out our show notes to find out more information on any of the stories that we've mentioned throughout today's show. You will also find an additional story in our selected reading section from "VIA Satellite" on smallSAT startups to watch in 2024. Hey, T-Minus Crew! If your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your SOT leadership or recruit talent, T-Minus can help. We'd like to hear from you. Just send us an email at space@n2k.com or send us a note through our website so we can connect about building a program to meet your goals. [music] Today's guest is Dr. Kelly Haaston, commander of the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog Mission, better known as NASA's CHAPIAA mission, which ended on July 6, 2024. We'll be sharing my full chat with Dr. Haaston on Saturday's Deep Space, but here is a snippet of what we talked about, starting with Dr. Haaston explaining the layout of the Mars-Dune Alpha, which is an isolated 1,700-square-foot habitat where she and her colleagues spent the last 12 months. Each of us had a bedroom. It wasn't super large, and you had a twin bed and an upspace. I had a standing desk, which was huge for me, because I loved to stand instead of sit at my work. Even in my workout, I stand at the hood. When I'm doing cell culture, I never sit. Little things like that can go a long way. The flight engineer Ross Buckwell, he always talks about little things actually mattering a lot, and that was very true. Having your own room, really key on a long mission, and I believe that was something that was really important to them, relative to short and during space flight. You may not have your own room, probably not. That was very nice. You had your own space. For me, that also meant that you could keep the public spaces a lot clearer, because you could do most of your personal things in there. Then we had a galley and rack area that was together, kitchen area along with some recreational use. A table that we used for dinner. We continued for the whole mission to eat most meals together, but in particular dinner, we pretty much had, probably 95 to 99% of the time, we ate dinner together throughout the mission, along with other social activities that we continued the whole time. That table was really ended up being one of the things that we used for meetings, for prep, for all sorts of things, and that was really critical. Then we had almost an equal amount of space that we had dedicated to mission specific tasks. We had a workspace that had both our science area and more of our engineering components as well. We had a room dedicated to the actions that we would take for when you are intervehicular or when you're the IV or MCC for the EVAs. That was as important a role, obviously. You need someone inside that's guiding the people on the outside that are on the Martian surface. That was a dedicated space. It was really high use. We had an exercise room because we had to exercise daily in the same way that you would if you go to space. It was prescribed, so we had to actually exercise in a prescribed manner. Then we had a med bay, which luckily was, we could flex that out and use it for other things, but an important thing to have if we do have injuries. It had a screen in it, and we were able to use it as a second TV room so that people could break off and do additional things there and stuff like that. Then, of course, bathrooms. We were lucky enough to have two bathroom areas, and that really diversified that and made that a little more pleasant for two people. If you had one go down, you can see that you'll always need, you know, personal health and hygiene is something where you need to redundancy. Yes. Critical. Because if you lose one toilet, you're not going to have, you know, without another one. And then on top of that, attached to the habitat were air locks that led us to the outside, and then an outdoor area that was covered and made to look like the Martian surface, where we did either virtual reality or non-virtual reality activities depending on what that day dictated in our sort of mission log. So we had a lot of different things going on in all of the, none of the spaces were single use. All of them had, you know, at least multiple uses, like the exercise bay having several pieces of equipment in it, but still maybe being the only thing that was really truly, like just for exercise. But you could even go in there and like do an audio if you really wanted just to like shut a door and be in a different room. So it was, you know, multi-use in that way too. That makes a lot of sense, honestly, to make the most use of the space you have. Let's get a little bit into the science. What can you tell me about what kind of work you are working on? There's two aspects to this mission, right? So this mission is an analog mission to collect human data for the scientists at NASA. That is the primary function of this analog is to actually gather information on human physiology and psychology and team dynamics during, you know, extreme isolation and resource limitations such as you would have on Mars. So obviously we were doing things that would actually collect data for the scientists along with everyday activities that are mimicking and are similar to what you would be doing on Mars. So we had science that we did inside. A little bit of blinded just because we have additional, there's two more missions coming and so we don't really talk about the details. But as you might imagine, we had everything that you could think of to, you know, you had science activities that would be what you would do if you were exploring a new planet. You had science activities that would be involved with maintenance both inside and outside the habitat of how you would actually maintain, you know, everything to do with living in an environment that is not friendly to Earthling biology. So you have all of those aspects. And again, we did the outside in a mix of virtual reality and non-VR. In all cases, we either built or maintained or fixed things that were going to be relevant to our experience there or were needed items for the science or the maintenance of life there. So a plethora of activities there. And then sometimes we would collect things and bring them back in and do analysis inside as well. So we also had inside activities that were scientific. We took measurements inside the hub for a host of things. Again, some of them were to do with our health. Some of them were to do with the habitats, you know, sort of maintenance and how it was doing with us. So there was like a number of things that they were testing across time. And most weeks had a particular flavor. So, you know, some weeks we would be focused on doing VR, EVAs. Other weeks we would maybe be focused on doing maintenance inside the hub or trainings or et cetera. So it was really, it was actually a diversity of activities and science that we were doing. And I really do like to make that distinguishing sort of thing that we were being scientists while at the same time we were actually producing data. Which is a really unique, it's a very unique sort of setting. So that's pretty exciting. Okay, so I'm going to go back to what it was like life-wise because I'm going to be bringing this slide. 378 days, if I'm remembering that number correctly. So marking the passage of time in a non-Earth, you know, you don't have the normal markers of what we, you know, are earthly seasons. I'd love to know sort of how you, you marked the passage of time and maybe if you had any favorite, you know, the commemorations. Yeah, yeah. So that's also a great question. And again, sort of getting to that intentionality. The only way you can continue to feel connected to your people back on Earth is to really, you know, make a point of celebrating both your holidays or common holidays, but also their holidays. So like as an example, you know, making note of your crewmate, you know, partners birthdays or, or, you know, children's birthdays or whatever, you know, just thinking about what's going on on Earth really helps us kind of mark that time. And then on top of that, we, so, so we did have special days. We celebrated different holidays that were important to the crew. Examples would be we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving because that's a different holiday than Americans have. And so that was, you know, sort of a nod for my family. We also, our med officer was really big on Christmas. And so we had a really tremendous Christmas where I think we watched, I can't, I've never seen that many Christmas movies. Like I know we watched, he had a list. He had a list and we talked much them off. We all ended up actually having really fantastic gifts for each other, even with the weight restrictions. And so to be honest, that was really special. Some were, some were made inside, some were brought in, especially as part of your, you know, your weight. All were very intentional. We celebrated birthdays, but we also celebrated important days in the mission. So like the sort of milestones that you would think of, there are obvious like the 50, 100, 200, 300, you know, and so forth. And oftentimes we did that by, you know, celebrating doing a special picture or set of pictures, something that would, you know, highlight kind of, you know, and so one of my favorites as a holiday, Christmas, as I said, was very stupendous and really was, you know, very special to med, you know, our med officer and us. But I really enjoyed also St. Patrick's Day, which is where one of the, one of the guys figured out that if he shook one of our tea items in a shaker, it looked a little bit like beer. And so we could, we could, we could drink beer. There's no alcohol on this mission. So here we are with like a dried item that we're able to actually kind of make look like beer. So we posted to the beer on St. Patrick's Day. That was super fun. And then at T minus 100 days. So when we had only 100 days left, we, the crew got all into our jumpsuits and we did a montage of different shots for, for the things that we only had 100 left up. So things that we did once a day. So, you know, as an example, you weigh yourself every single day and record that. Like you, you take certain biometrics every single day. And so we took pictures of all of that. And then we did a montage of it and sent it to Mission Control. And, you know, as kind of an acknowledgement for all of us that we only all had 100 days left to, to do all those things. And, and those were, those were like really fun, right? And you would share them with people that were helping you, you know, that, that were really running the mission. That meant a lot to all of us. And I think that that also, you know, it produced a sense of fun when we were doing it. And, and, you know, we would just, I think we were very, I think as a crew, we worked really well to do that. And everybody took turns kind of being, you know, I was generally the, the picture pusher. So I'd be like, hey guys, a special day is coming. And I'm a terrible picture-taker. So it was really funny that I got that job. But, but, you know, but everybody had something like that. So, you know, in terms of like fun and games, you know, someone would be like, oh, hey, let's do this. Or, or somebody would have an idea for something to do or a movie or, or, you know, some, some readout that we could like do that would be fun. And I would say that one of the strengths of the crew on top of just, you know, being intentionally cohesive and working to be there for each other for the whole mission. Was that idea that we continued to really try to produce, you know, fun things to do for each other and be thoughtful about that throughout the mission. I mean, I think we played a card game on the last day while we were waiting for egress. We were done with everything. And we were also keyed up. So I think we actually sat there and played cards or dice or something. I can't remember, but we were definitely like, so that was, that was very, we were, we were strong in that. And I think that that helps because yes, you're right. The monotony of daily life being very similar for that many days. It's not our norm on earth. Even with, even with COVID, we were most of us were still able to go outside and do things like that. So it really helped for us to be thoughtful in that. So it does give a nod to exactly the importance of play and, and the importance of intentional living, like thinking through how your, your week is going to be and what you're going to do that's special. And, and making a point of making things special, which, you know, sometimes I think we forget or look past when we're so used to all the stimuli we have here. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, this last story is a bit outside our normal space lane, but because it's related to Star Trek, let's be real. A whole heck of a lot of us are in this industry to start with because of that TV franchise. So maybe it's not that much of a stretch. So if you or a fellow Trekkie friend happened to be going to Galaxycon in San Jose later this month, buckle up buckaroos because the one and only William Shatner, Captain James Decker, the OG, will be there. That in and of itself is not earth shattering news. No, but at this fan con, Shatner is going to be doing a live screening of the 1989 movie Star Trek 5, The Final Frontier, while also doing live commentary. Yeah, I can hear a few of you groaning and because I'm more of a Picard and Cisco gal, I'm kind of with you. But if I could, I would run, not walk to hear the chat reflect on this movie because Star Trek 5 is the film in the Star Trek franchise. That Shatner himself directed and according to Galaxycon's press release is, and I quote them, a critically underrated motion picture. I don't know about that. I think it's a shining example of the Star Trek rule of even number films being decent, maybe, and odd numbered films being odd. This one especially nearly killed the entire Star Trek franchise for being such a stinker, just as Star Trek the next generation was just beginning. But if the name Cybock doesn't make you shudder in horror, and if the phrase "go, climb a rock" means something to you, get yourself to San Jose, California on August 18th for this special event if you can. I really hope the commentary makes it online for those of us who can't be there because I think we're all wondering what God needs with a starship. And what was going through their heads when they made that movie? [Music] That's it for T-minus for August 8th, 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 is 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 Kilby is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]