[MUSIC] Fresh from the kicking them while they're already down desk this morning, NASA's Office of the Inspector General released a report with major concerns about the space launch system Block 1B's development and management. SLS Block 1B, by the way, is going to be the new heavy lift rocket that will launch the Artemis 4 mission in no earlier than September 2028. And you want to take a wild guess at how that report reflects on Boeing? [MUSIC] T-minus. [MUSIC] Twenty seconds to alloy. [INAUDIBLE] Open aboard. [MUSIC] Today is August 12th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmausus and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] NASA's Office of Inspector General, SLAMS, SLS Management. SpaceX launches satellites for space Norway Arctic broadband. Brazil and Chile sign a space collaboration MOU. And our guest today is Ariel Ekbla, CEO of the Aurelia Institute. And I got to visit the Aurelia Institute's new space habitat pavilion while it was on display in Boston. And I got to ask them all about the really cool design. So stick around for that chat later in the program. [MUSIC] Happy Monday everybody. Let's dive into today's Intel Briefing. NASA's Office of the Inspector General released a report on the SLS Block 1B's development, monitoring work done from August 2023 to May of this year. And unfortunately for Boeing, the results of that audit are not very kind. With the OIG reporting that there have been multiple issues encountered with the rocket's development that will likely hinder the rocket's readiness for Artemis IV, including, and I quote, "Boeing's ineffective quality management and inexperienced workforce, continued cost increases and schedule delays, and the delayed establishment of a cost and schedule baseline." To be more specific, and another quote here, "Boeing's quality management system does not meet industry standards in core stage productions at Michoud, and that the OIG found a number of non-conformances during the manufacturing process, and that Boeing's quality management system to address those non-conformances were," and I quote again, "ineffective." That is a lot of ways to say that some big changes need to be made if the Artemis IV mission is ever going to get off the ground, literally. The report makes four recommendations to NASA for next steps, three of which NASA has agreed to. In addition to overhauling the Boeing quality management system, NASA will also be performing a detailed cost overrun analysis, and will conduct regular reviews of the contract in coordination with the Defense Contract Management Agency to ensure no cost overruns. The only recommendation NASA did not agree with was finding Boeing for not complying with quality control standards. As NASA said, this would be outside of the bounds of their existing contract. Moving on to other news now, SpaceX broke its own record this weekend with the 22nd reuse of its first stage booster. The rocket company launched two satellites as part of the Space Norway Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission, or ASBM, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. ASBM 1 and 2 are twin satellites built by Northrop Grumman for Space Norway, in cooperation with Inmarsat and the Norwegian Ministry of Defense. The satellites are designed to bring mobile broadband coverage in the Arctic for both civilians and military. And SpaceX was aiming to launch another Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Coast on Sunday morning, but scrubbed the attempt with less than a minute on the countdown clock. It had no issues getting the job done on Monday morning though, launching 23 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center at 6.37 a.m. The first stage booster for the mission made its 17th flight with another recovery landing downrange on the drone ship, a shortfall of Gravitas, stationed in the Atlantic. Rocket Lab celebrated the 52nd Electron launch in the early hours of Monday in New Zealand. A sky full of SARS mission saw Rocket Lab successfully deploy a single satellite for Capella Space. The launch window for Rocket Lab's next electron mission will be announced in the coming days. Brazil and Chile have signed a memorandum of understanding on space cooperation. The two Latin American nations plan to exchange information on science, technology, and innovation in space matters and identify and promote research and development projects and programs that can be carried out cooperatively. The agreement allows Brazil and Chile to exchange information on activities, public policies, practices, laws, and regulations related to research and development of science, technology, and innovation in space fields. Brazilian President Lula da Silva used the opportunity to outline the uses of space for good, stating, and I quote, "The delusions of billionaires who prefer to colonize Mars rather than take care of the earth are no substitute for the action and guidance of the state," he argued. "Today there is no activity that does not require space infrastructure," he added, citing the importance of addressing climate change. Azerbaijan Space Agency Azir Cosmos has signed a new partnership agreement with the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana. Azir Cosmos currently supplies satellite services to nearly half of the 13 countries in southern Africa. Through this agreement, the Botswana government agency will utilize data services provided via the Azir Space One telecommunication satellite. The US Space Agency launched a sounding rocket from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico over the weekend to study the sun. NASA's full-sun ultraviolet rocket spectrograph, also known as FIRST, aims to study our nearest star and compare it to others that scientists have studied. FIRST will obtain the FIRST high-resolution spectra of the sun as a star in vacuum ultraviolet, a light wavelength that's absorbed in Earth's atmosphere, meaning it can really only be observed from space. Astronomers have studied other stars in vacuum ultraviolet with orbiting telescopes, but these instruments are way too sensitive to be pointed at our sun. The sounding rocket opened during flight, allowing FIRST to observe the sun for approximately five minutes before closing and then falling back to the Earth's surface. NASA has released a request for information seeking interest from American companies and institutions in conducting a mission using the agency's Viper Moon rover. Viper, which is short for Volatile's Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, was designed to map the location and concentration of potential off-planet resources like ice on the south pole of the Earth's moon. NASA announced last month its intent to discontinue Viper and to pursue alternative methods to verify the presence of frozen water at the lunar south pole, but could contribute the Viper rover as is to an interested partner. From July 17th to August 1st, NASA accepted expressions of interest from the broader community in using the existing Viper rover system. The request for information now seeks to learn more about how interested parties would use Viper at minimal to no cost to the US government. And you can find that RFI and links to further reading on all of the stories that we've mentioned in our show notes. We've also included an opinion piece from The Hill on what space policy could look like after the 2024 US election. Hey T-minus crew, every Monday we produce a written intelligence roundup and it is called Signals and Space. So if you happen to miss any T-minus episodes, this strategic intelligence product will get you up to speed in the fastest way possible. It's all signal, no noise. You can sign up for signals and space in our show notes or at space.n2k.com. Today's guest is Ariel Ekblau, CEO of the Aurelia Institute and I had the distinct pleasure of visiting their new space Habitat Pavilion when it was here in the Boston area earlier this month. Well I'm in Roslindale, Massachusetts which is part of Boston in a really cool, gorgeous co-working space. Can you tell me a bit about what we are standing in right now? Yes, absolutely. So you are standing in a truncated icosahedron. Icosahedron. Also, belovedly known as a buckyball. So buckyball has 20 hexagon panels and 12 pentagon panels. So that's the geometry that you see that essentially makes the outline of this self-assembling dome. Okay, self-assembling. How does that work? Mm-hmm. So in space we design a system that has magnets on the edges of these flat packed tiles. And so you can imagine spaced Legos released to free float and essentially build themselves in orbit. In this case we design the geometry of each panel so that the curvature all comes together into a glorified soccer ball or a buckyball. Now the structure you're in right now is an earth-based mockup. So this one is not going to go to space but we built it to be able to communicate to the public what our vision is for the tesserae habitat interior design while we work on that self-assembling space grade version. Would it be around this size? Is that sort of the vision? Wow. Exactly. So we're aiming towards something that's around 10 meters for interior diameter. So just over 30 feet and that is accurate true to scale for what we're standing in here. The goal is a really open large expansive volume. It is very big and there's also really interesting features throughout and the entire effect just cumulatively because I think I'd struggle to probably describe all the cool things that are in here. I mean some of them almost look like a coral and there's a really fascinating like a science station over here but it's beautiful. It's just the first thing that strikes you when you step in here. It's not a metal tube floating in space that's very clinical. This is this would be a delight to spend time in I think for anyone but I can imagine maybe a crew doing hard work in space. The arduousness of that being in here would be a source of joy. Thank you so much. That's exactly what we're going for. This space is built on dozens of interviews that my co-founder Sana Sharma led as part of an astronaut ethnography project to learn from astronauts about comfort and care in orbit and this module in particular is the communal module exactly as you said where people can gather after a long day working or commuting to and from space and in particular thinking about how do we grow food, cook that food together and break bread together and eat together in space. So I'm so happy that that feeling comes through for you because we're very intentional about trying to push back on the steril aesthetic, the silver, the chrome, the 1960s space modernist vibe and actually have a much more comfortable inclusive welcoming space that you can really live in. A space that you'd be thriving in not just surviving in. Yeah, I love that and given you said it's a module could these sort of click together for yeah so you could sort of daisy chain a whole bunch of these together to make a really large. Exactly, an expansive space station that is indeed our goal so this is module number one but the vision is that we would have some of these panels be an airlock so that you could have other functional tesserae ball modules. One of our kind of key capstone projects is this case study, orbital case study where instead of focusing on communal eating, cooking and growing we focus on a biotech lab in orbit so you can imagine pairing this communal space with a lab space or a functional space or even crew quarters. Wow, okay so are the different structures we've seen here sort of telling part of that story so again I'm not sure how to explain like what is that? What is that? A bunch of inflatable cylinders of different colors okay I'm not explaining this well but what is this sort of organic form? What is that? Yeah so what we're looking at across the module here is a sea anemone inspired space couch so in space you can't sit down right you can't rest on a horizontal surface but maybe like a sea creature you can nestle in to a beautiful sea anemone so it is a very intentionally whimsical space inflatable the color palette that we're seeing is a mix of green and gold and olive green and white and it's meant to harken back to these really important earth tones we know how important biophilia is for humans so yeah that's the that's the vision behind this massive space. So like a little clownfish astronaut and nestling in the anemones oh I could totally see that that's only possible in space but that makes a lot of sense now that you've explained them like oh that totally makes sense and I would imagine so this looks something like a porthole but there are some interesting is that just ornamentation there's some sort of stones around the edges of it or is that just for beauty? So everything we do at Aurelia we try to have this dual purpose for so one of our goals right is to move beyond the model of the International Space Station where it's pretty much just for functional use that you're looking at is an algae stained glass window so it is for beauty. Wow. It is for beauty it's meant to be able to really inspire delight and awe but it's also functional so the idea is that the light from outside of that habitat comes in and feeds the algae the algae is then able to produce supplemental oxygen for the crew so it alone is not sufficient for an environmental control and light support system but it's a really important supplement and one that we think is important to have some fun with and let it be beautiful let it really captivate people and then behind it is that cupola window. Oh very very important and and the the green it really looks like sea glass sort of is the color that it reminds me of which is such a magical color so to see that and something that you know we don't usually think of in the space environment is is that's really outstanding and I see there's a number of sort of netting arrangements here I would imagine this is maybe for navigate wayfinding that makes a lot of sense. As a lot of your space listeners will know if you have a big enough expansive volume you can get stuck in it in the middle. Skylab. So we have this netting which is actually hand knotted by our team members so in the long tradition of spacefarers used to knit their own ropes and nets for sailing we hand knotted this rope and now have installed it as part of that ergonomics and wayfinding aspect of the habitat. Well it looks beautiful so kudos to everybody on that that's really that's some really good work and so this uh this I don't even know how to describe this so okay you're looking at a big hexagon panel so one of the big open geometries of the tesserae shape and we have segmented it into six different segments so the capstone is this aeroponics green vault. Oh yeah this is a fully functioning aeroponics green vault. Really okay. So we can put active live plants in there we've tested the spray nozzle in zero g on some of our aurelia horizon program flights to make sure that this would actually be a functional way of getting the roots wet for plants in microgravity. Now of course there's kind of two purposes there one is for the mental health of astronauts actually being able to care for plants we know how important that is for emotional support for a deep space mission but then also just pragmatically for food so we also selected a selection of plants and herbs that have very strong flavors to help counteract that challenge of loss of taste and loss of smell and space due to the redistribution of the fluid in your body. Below that green vault which is really the capstone on either side we have fermentation orbs now these are designed to be like planets designed to be like oh that is kimchi and above it is sourdough and to the right is pickled seaweed. I was going to say that looks like seaweed that's fantastic listen I love pickles so what can you can go wrong yes I mean and they're great for your gut so they are that's the idea shell stable but actually have good probiotics for gut microbiome that's fantastic on that traditional treat freeze dried food or just more traditionally packaged food this makes a lot of sense it's it okay I would now that you've explained I'm going I didn't know how to to describe this but yeah it's it's you've got what's the almost like a terrarium like as you said there's a keystone at the top and then these different orbs with with food with inside of them now that I look more closely yeah that's that's that is so beautiful it's beautiful. The center one thank you the center one has a very special story it is a zero gravity and has been tested in zero jib flight a couple years ago zero gravity sous vide a boiler I don't even have one of those in my house that's really but I've heard the steak is great you can make a sous vide so that is even for pasta it's basically the only way we could boil in space so yes sous vide might sound a little fancy but it's really just pragmatically a boiler that makes sense well that is really clever I got a hand at you this is a really fantastic setup and I was hearing a little bit anecdotally about the process of making this setup here in substation can you tell me a bit about that because it sounds like it's a cool story yeah so it's a Amish inspired barn raised basically that the whole team does all together we do all of the engineering and the design in-house and then we all get up on ladders and we build it in-house so you're looking at a almost 30 feet high or wide structure and we all did this all together last week so we put it up in a week so that is your own sweat equity so kudos to the whole team that is not a small deal that's really that's wonderful this is something you really built with your own hands that's fantastic what are the plans for this uh like how long is this going to be here how is it going somewhere after this it is indeed we actually just got the news of this I'm super excited to be able to share starting in September in late September we've been invited to exhibit at the Seattle Museum of Flight oh so we're going to build the whole dome and it'll be open in the museum all the way until January for the public to come see [Music] we'll be right back welcome back space missions in limbo may just find a second chance in the commercial space world for example as we mentioned earlier in the show the viper moon rover may find its chance to roam terra luna if a private company like intuitive machines or I don't know someone else opts to take over the project from nasa and another mission that's famously been in limbo for some time is nasa's mars sample return what if instead of nasa trying to make it work they hand over the keys to I don't know space x and the mission uses a combination of both starship and the tesla cyber truck to make mars sample return a viable mission once again it's understandable if you scoff at this idea but you should know that there are rampant rumors right now that these are actually the core concepts the space axis potential mars sample return proposal to nasa just to refresh your memory seven companies and all responded to a nasa request for proposals back in april about their alternative ideas for the mars sample return as it's been pretty roundly confirmed that the current plans are both too wildly expensive and would take too long so instead of nasa's clips or commercial lunar payload services program we might instead get a comps or commercial martian payload services program anyway space x is one of those seven companies that indicated interest and undoubtedly starship would factor into plans for a launch vehicle to get anything to mars the cyber truck though that's a bit more far out and the idea would be that it could with some work or a lot of work serve as a mars rover like a tesla version of the perseverance rover cyber trucks on mars might sound like a schlocky b-movie sci-fi but it could also be a genuine proposal from team elan would be interesting if space x sends another tesla into space but this time actually puts it on the ground somewhere so that's it for t-minus for august 12 2024 brought to you by n2k cyberwire for additional resources from today's report check out our show notes at space dot n2k dot com we'd love to know what you think of this podcast your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry if you like the show and we always hope you do please share a rating and short review in your favorite podcast app also you could please fill out the survey in the show notes or just send us an email to space@n2k.com we are privileged that n2k cyber wire 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 peltsman and tre hester with original music by elliot peltsman our executive producer is janifer iban our executive editor is brandon carp simone patella is our president peter kilpey is our publisher and i'm your host maria var masas thank you for listening we'll see you tomorrow [MUSIC]
