Space laws and policies have come under scrutiny this week. First, it was the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation that came under attack from the US Congress and private businesses for not acting quickly enough with licensing. Then yesterday's private space walk was accused of violating space law. All we can say is that progress takes time, and sometimes it gets a little ahead of itself and of the policies and laws that keep us all compliant. No one said that space was easy. Today is September the 13th, 2024. I'm Alice Karouf and this is T-minus. Polaris Dorm Releases a music video from Orbit. Airbus Ventures launches a $155 million fund. United Airlines and Starlink will provide free wifi or planes. And it's Friday, so we have our weekly NSF Space Traffic Report. Alicia Segal will be reviewing the Space launch news from the week that's been and looking ahead at the week to come. It's Friday the 13th, which is unlucky for some, but not for the Polaris Dorm crew who've had an incredible mission this week. On top of their record-breaking spacewalk success yesterday, the crew, and particularly Sarah Gillis, had one more surprise to share with us. Gillis released a music video this morning titled Harmony of Resilience. The video shows the SpaceX engineer and violinist collaborating with musicians back here on Earth on a performance of a song Star Wars fans may be familiar with. Sarah started the performance of Ray's theme from the capsule of the Crew Dragon before an orchestra joined in. But it wasn't just one orchestra, Gillis collaborated with performers from the US, Haiti, Venezuela, Brazil, Sweden, and Uganda. Welcome aboard the Dragon spacecraft. I'm Sarah Gillis, one of the Polaris Dorm crew members. As we travel around our beautiful planet Earth on this five-day mission, we wanted to share this special music moment with you. Bringing together global talent, this performance symbolizes unity and hope, highlighting the resilience and potential of children everywhere. Here is Ray's theme by John Williams, brought to you from the stars. [Music] . [Music] [Music plays] The Polaris programme shared on their website that the performance was inspired by the universal language of music and the relentless fight against childhood cancers and diseases. This moment was created with the hope of inspiring the next generation to look towards the stars. The video was created in partnership with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for whom the Polaris programme is raising money throughout the mission and El Sestimo USA, a programme that aims to promote music education for positive societal impact. What an incredible way to promote STEAM, that science, tech, engineering, the arts and math and promoting how space can inspire good on the planet. Just amazing. Go and check out the full video today. You won't regret it. There were no updates at the time of recording on the Starlink laser communication test that will be planned for day four. Lara Stone is expected to return to Earth this weekend. Venture capitalist group Airbus Ventures have raised a $155 million fund. The VC says it plans to deploy the funds across the deep space ecosystem, including space. Thomas de Hallouin, managing partner of Airbus Ventures, told CNBC that this fund is designed to unlock new possibilities and space is one of them. The third of Airbus Ventures capital deployed so far has been in the space sector with notable investments in companies such as Impulse Space, iSpace and Leolabs. Airbus Ventures is particularly looking to deploy funds to global space startups, with the CEO telling media that he sees very strong momentum in Europe and Japan. United Airlines have signed an agreement with SpaceX's Starlink to provide free in-flight Wi-Fi to customers using the airline's mainline and regional aircraft fleet. United expects to have Starlink on all United aircraft, more than 1,000 planes over the next several years. Testing begins in early 2025, with the first passenger flight is expected later that year. I just want to throw it out there to you, United. I'm flying in just over two weeks and I'm happy to test this for you on my way to KSC, just putting it out there in the universe. ZENASIS, a network as a service, mobile backhaul services and Earth Observation company, has won a new Phase II contract from the Space Development Agency for optical communications terminals. The contract is a follow-on effort from an initial Phase I award in August 2022 for ZENASIS's adaptable optical satellite terminal concepts. The 12-month project aims to take the optical terminal from a preliminary design stage to a conceptual design review in preparation for commercialization. Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have successfully collaborated on a static fire test of an advanced long-range solid rocket motor at the Northrop Grumman Allegheny Ballistics Lab in West Virginia. The test demonstrated wide, end-burning technology for hypersonic applications and provided data to support digital modelling and simulations that validated the design maturity and performance of the rocket motor. Raytheon's advanced technology team and Northrop Grumman leveraged their combined digital engineering expertise to accelerate the design and development in a digital environment using model-based systems engineering. Mementis has been selected by DARPA's Strategic Technology Office to become a member of the Bringing Classified Innovation to Defence and Government Systems consortium known as BRIDGES. As part of the consortium, Mementis will be sponsored for a facility clearance, enabling the company to engage directly with Department of Defence customers at classified levels. BRIDGES aims to serve as an incubator for companies with the potential to contribute value to classified DoD efforts. And Mementis has entered into a collaboration agreement with Loadstar Space to integrate a robotic arm onto a Mementis Vigoride orbital service vehicle. Mementis will work with Loadstar Space to define the requirements to integrate and perform a robotic arm mission on a Vigoride OSV. Loadstar Space received a UK Space Agency grant of £800,000 to fund the development of a platform agnostic modular robotic arm to perform contact-dependent dynamic space operations. The project is intended to develop a capability to inspect, protect and repair vital assets beyond Earth. Mementis will support the project with information on concepts around rendezvous and proximity operations and docking, mission operations and information on spacecraft operations. The Pentagon's plans to upgrade the global positioning system have hit a major roadblock due to chip shortages. The US Department of Defence have been working to modernise the GPS system aiming to improve accuracy and security, but due to the global semiconductor shortages, the Pentagon is now struggling to get the advanced chips required for the next-gen GPS satellites. These chips are crucial for making GPS more resistant to jamming and cyberattacks, capabilities that are vital in an era of increasing global tensions. Supply chain disruptions in recent years are slowing things down. This has created significant delays in deploying the new GPS systems, which are critical for both civilian and military operations. The question is now, how long can the US afford these delays? With the current GPS infrastructure aging and competition from global players like China, the stakes are high. That concludes this Intel briefing for Friday the 30th. Head to the selected reading section of our show notes to find links to further reading on all the stories mentioned. We've even added an additional story on the UK, US and Australia signing a supply chain resilience pact that may have some impact on the space industry. Hey T-miners crew, tune in tomorrow for T-miners 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 have Jay Delaney talking about ground segment as a service. Check it out while you're running the kids to their various sports meets, catching up on chores or relaxing after moving house like our host Maria is. We do hope you won't miss it. [Music] It's Friday so it means it's time for the Space Traffic Report brought to you by our partners at nasaspaceflight.com. Alicia Segal brings us a look at the Space Launch updates from the week that's been and a look ahead at the week to come. I'm Alicia Segal for NSF and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for T-Minus Space. Starting off the week of course we had the uncrewed return of Boeing's Starliner Calypso spacecraft from the International Space Station. If you're a regular listener you're probably up to speed with that return but if not here's a refresher. Starliner Calypso was the spacecraft for Boeing's crew flight test which launched on June 5th to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams on board. However during its trip to the station the spacecraft suffered thruster issues on its service module that after much deliberation forced NASA to forego a crude return of the spacecraft. With that decision made Calypso was prepared for an uncrewed undocking and landing which took place right after our last Space Traffic Report. The spacecraft undocked from the forward docking port of the station's Harmony Module on September 6th at 2204 UTC completing a three-month stay at the orbiting outpost. Despite concerns with its thrusters Starliner successfully backed away from the station and safely departed the safety boundaries around the ISS. 12 departure burns put Calypso on a course for landing at the White Sand Space Harbor later that day. At 317 UTC on September 7th Calypso successfully performed its sea orbit burn and separated its crew and service modules prior to reentry. The capsule entered the atmosphere about 30 minutes later traveling through the plasma phase successfully and parachuting down to a soft landing in the desert plains of White Sands. With this capsule return Sunny and Butch will now remain on station until it's their time to return home on Crew Dragon Freedom in February of 2025 as part of SpaceX's Crew 9 mission. That mission is now scheduled to launch no earlier than September 25th at 1828 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Alexander Gorbinov. The two crew members have already entered the routine pre-flight quarantine and are set to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center next week on September 20th. This week we also had the launch of the amazing Polaris Dawn mission. Lift off of Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon Resilience took place on September 10th at 923 UTC from Launch Complex 39A in Florida after some rough weather delayed it to the middle of the launch window. On board resilience were Commander Jared Isaacman, Pilot Scott Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis and Medical Officer Anna Mennon. Falcon 9 successfully inserted the crew into a 190 by 1200 kilometer orbit and Dragon separated from its upper stage very fittingly at Orbital Dawn. Falcon 9's first stage as customary was a flight-proven booster, B-1083, flying on its fourth mission. Due to the extra performance requirements to insert Dragon into a highly elliptical orbit, the booster landed on SpaceX's drone ship Just Read the Instructions instead of back on land as is now usual for crewed missions. During the first two days in space, resilience maneuvered into a 190 by 1400 kilometer orbit marking the furthest any humans have traveled from Earth since the Apollo 17 mission. After that, the spacecraft performed a series of burns to lower its apogee down to about 740 kilometers in preparation for the all-important extravehicular activity that was one of the key milestones for this mission. While the vehicle's maneuvers were performed, resilience's cabin atmosphere was gradually replaced with a lower pressure atmosphere containing a higher oxygen concentration in order to slowly purge nitrogen out of the crew's bodies, and during the third day of the mission, Isaacman and Gillis successfully performed the first all-commercial spacewalk, beginning the procedure on September 12th at 10.12 UTC while flying over the Atlantic Ocean. After roughly 35 minutes of preparation, Isaacman opened the hatch and exited resilience to perform several mobility tests, trying out the suit's mobility upgrades. After about 8 minutes, Isaacman returned to his seat, swapping out with Gillis who performed a similar procedure. The two spent a total of about 15 minutes outside of Dragon's hatch during the 106 minutes of the whole EVA operation. The spacewalk officially wrapped at 11.58 UTC, once Dragon's cabin was repressurized and all leak checks were completed. Looking ahead, there are about two more days for the crew before returning home. They're expected to conduct several more science investigations while in orbit and will continue to test the Starlink laser system installed on resilience. Based on Marine Hazard notices for Dragon's Flashdown, a return for resilience and its crew of four could happen as soon as September 14th between 6 o'clock and 10.30 UTC. Continuing with the record-breaking crew missions, this week we also had the launch of a Soyuz spacecraft with the crew of three headed to the International Space Station as part of the next crew rotation mission. Lift off of the Soyuz 2.1A rocket with the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft took place on September 11th at 16.23 UTC from Site-31-6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On board were Commander Alexei Ovchinin and Flight Director Yvonne Wagner, both Roscosmos Cosmonauts, and Flight Engineer Don Pettit, a NASA astronaut. The trio was sent on a fast-track to orbit rendezvous with the ISS, docking to the Ross Viet module just a bit over three hours later at 1932 UTC. After hatch opening, they joined the crews of Soyuz MS-25, Crew-8, and Sunion Butch, who had launched on Starliner. This launch broke the record for most people in orbit at 19. Twelve of these people are currently living on the ISS, three are living inside the Chinese Space Station, and at least for a few more days we also have another four people in orbit on the Polaris Dawn mission. So what ironic is that the whole reason this record's even possible is because Sunion Butch remained on the station instead of coming down on Starliner. Up until now the record had been 17 people in orbit, which was established last year when two Shenzhou crews, 15 and 16, had met at the Chinese Space Station, while on the ISS there were two Crew Dragon missions underway, Crew-6 and Axiom-2, and a Soyuz crew as well, Soyuz MS-23. Add another two astronauts, and voila! You've got 19 in orbit. Continuing with the exciting week of launches, we had another Falcon 9 mission taking place from Florida. The launch took place on September 12th at 8.52 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40, carrying the first five satellites of AST Space Mobile's Bluebird Block 1 constellation into a low Earth orbit. This constellation is aimed at delivering cellular connectivity from space to unmodified phones on the ground, similar to how Global Star or Starlink direct to cell works. The Bluebird satellites take advantage of giant deployable phased array antennas to act as cell towers in space connecting to cell phones on the ground without the need for any special modifications. These initial five satellites are just the start of a much larger constellation of nearly 100 satellites that the company plans to deploy over the next few years, which will be followed by even more improved and larger satellites later in the decade. The total mass of the satellites at launch was about 7.5 tons, with SpaceX developing a rather peculiar-looking payload adapter to hold all five at once. Despite this, the first stage for this mission, B-1078, was flying for a 13th time and still had enough performance to return all the way back to the Cape. While spacewalk preparations for Polaristan obviously grabbed everyone's attention, the boost backburn for this mission put on an amazing show in the sky, probably one of the best examples of what we refer to as the Falcon Nebula. B-1078 successfully returned to landing zone one and sent sonic booms across the space coast. And just last night, we had the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with more Starlinks out of Vandenberg. The rocket was carrying 13 Starlink direct to cell and 8 Starlink V2 mini satellites into low Earth orbit. The first stage for this mission, B-1071, was flying for an 18th time and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, of course I still love you. With this launch, SpaceX has now launched a total of 7,022 Starlink satellites, of which 607 have re-entered and 5,996 have moved into their operational orbit. Coming up next week, we'll have at least two launches, one from SpaceX and another one from Rocket Lab. The first mission will be a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the next two Galileo global positioning satellites for the European Commission. The launch is currently scheduled to take place on September 15th at 2257 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The second will be an electron rocket carrying out the mission called "Kanace Killed the Radio Star" with an IOT on the end of radio because it'll be carrying the next five satellites of a constellation for French Internet of Things company, Kanace. The launch, said to take place from New Zealand, is currently scheduled for September 16th at 2302 UTC. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF and that's your weekly Space Traffic Report. Now back to T-Minus Space. We'll be right back. Welcome back. I'm not going to lie, the last few weeks have been super draining. Maria has bought her new house and moved and I'm super stoked for her, but I'm so looking forward to her coming back to work next week so I'm not writing and producing like I do every day and hosting the show. She makes the hosting part look so easy or maybe it's just our incredible audio team. Thanks for making me sound coherent. I'm also looking forward to Maria coming back because it means I get to take some time off. Though I'm not going on vacation, I'm heading to Florida to join the NASA Socials event before the Crew 9 takeoff, which is now scheduled for September 25th. Crew 9 has been in the headlines a lot recently with the changes to the assignments following the decision to keep Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore on the station to join them. The September 25th launch will see NASA astronaut and first active guardian to go to space, Nick Hague and Roscosmos Kosmonov Alexander Gorbanov head to the ISS for the next six months. They, along with Sunny and Butch, will be working on experiments on the orbiting lab to include studying blood cell development in space, patching the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer or NICER telescope, studying whether a daily B vitamin supplement can help prevent or mitigate problems with vision changes and assess how genetics may influence individual response, conducting plant growth experiments and so much more. I cannot wait to share my experience at the Crew 9 launch when I get back from Florida later this month and if you have any suggestions for things to do, places to see and people to talk to while I'm in Titusville, then send me an email space@n2k.com. [Music] That's it for Team Miners for September 13th, 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 the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send me an email at space@n2k.com. We're 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's Associate Producer is Liz Stokes. We're 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 Alice Carruth. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend all. [Music] Team, I live. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
