I'm back after a move-cation last week. I'm exhausted but happy, and my sincerest thanks to the wonderful Alice for covering for me while I moved houses. What a week for me to be out of the office, though. Anything interesting happen? Ah, yeah, yeah. Welcome back to Earth Polaris Dawn, mission complete. T-minus. Twenty seconds to alloy. Open aboard. Today is September 16th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmazes, and this is T-minus. [Music] Polaris Dawn's crew complete their mission. TELASAT finalizes $2.54 billion in funding agreements. MDA starts the expansion of its production facility. And our guest today is Benedictos Gillis, founder of Portals. And he'll be chatting to show producer Alice Carruth about his new collaboration with Sen to bring space to portal installations around the world. So stick around for that chat. [Music] It is Monday, everybody. Let's dive into our Intel briefing for today. And it's officially mission complete for the Polaris Dawn crew, as the all-civilian crew safely splashed down near Florida on early Sunday morning, concluding their five days in Earth's orbit. We are mission complete, said mission commander Jared Isaacman, as the crew capsule awaited retrieval from the recovery team. Isaacman, along with crew Sarah Gillis, Scott Poteet, and Anna Mennon, have all made history as the first all-commercial crew to perform a spacewalk. The Polaris Dawn mission had a number of objectives, including reaching a high-orbit altitude and performing the first all-commercial crew spacewalk. In addition, the crew conducted starlink laser-based communications in space, as well as health impact scientific research. But we haven't heard yet the status of those missions, but given that the crew just got back, we'll give them a few days to unpack. And as someone who's just moved, I can so relate. TELASAT has completed funding agreements with the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec for its TELASAT light speed, low-orbit, broadband satellite constellation. As the Government of Canada previously disclosed, the Government of Canada loan is for $2.14 billion and will carry a floating interest rate that is 4.75% above the Canadian overnight repo rate average with a 15-year maturity. Furthermore, the Government of Canada is receiving warrants for 10% of the common shares of TELASAT Leo based upon an equity valuation for TELASAT Leo of $3 billion. The Government of Quebec loan is for $400 million and has terms that largely mirror the Government of Canada loan, but with warrants for 1.87% in proportion to the smaller loan amount. Dan Goldberg, President and CEO of TELASAT, shared in the press release that TELASAT light speed will help bridge the digital divide in Canada and throughout the world, create and sustain thousands of high-quality jobs in Canada, deliver billions of dollars of investment in the Canadian economy, spur domestic innovation and exports, and ensure that Canada and Quebec are at the forefront of the rapidly growing new space economy. And staying in Canada, MDA Space has announced that construction is underway on a 185,000-square-foot expansion at its satellite production facility in Saint-Anne-Duel-Vue, Quebec. Once completed, the facility will be the world's largest high-volume manufacturing facility in its satellite class. MDA says the facility has the capacity to deliver up to two MDA Aurora digital satellites per day. An additional order of 198 TELASAT light speed satellites will be produced at the new facility, following TELASAT's selection of MDA as the prime satellite contractor for the TELASAT light speed constellation. Capella Space has been selected for an AFWORK's Ventures Strategic Funding Increase Award by the US Space Force. The STRACT-5 funding aims to accelerate private sector innovation to enhance US Air Force capabilities and mission requirements. Capella Space will receive $15 million in funding to mature, scale, and extend its synthetic aperture radar technology. RIVADA Space Networks and Peroton are joining forces on an ultra-secure, low-earth orbit network capability to support mission-critical US government communications around the globe. Peroton will work with RIVADA Space Networks on their outer net to ensure that its customers have access to the latest innovation in secure space architecture. Momentus has entered into a securities purchase agreement with a single US institutional investor for the purchase and sale of 5 million shares of common stock. The stock will be sold at a purchase price of $0.55 per share pursuant to a private placement offering, resulting in total gross proceeds of approximately $2.75 million before deducting placement agent commissions and other estimated offering expenses. I also do not know what that means. In any case, the company further agreed to issue to the investor Class A common warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 10 million shares of common stock and Class B common warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 5 million shares of common stock together with the common warrants. The Arian-6 Launcher Task Force, led by the European Space Agency, CNES, and Arian Group, has released a report following the inaugural launch of the Arian-6 in July. Flight data confirms the excellent behavior and performance of the launch vehicle with a very limited number of deviations compared to predictions. However, a few unexpected behaviors of the whole launch system were recorded during the technology demonstration phase of the mission. Analysis shows that a third ignition of the Auxiliary Propulsion Unit was shut down by flight software due to one temperature measurement exceeding the predefined limit. The ignition preparation sequence will be changed through updated flight software that is already being tested and will be applied on future flights. It's always a software issue, isn't it? And NASA is coordinating with U.S. government stakeholders, partners, and international standards organizations to establish a coordinated lunar time, which will be referred to as LTC. The move follows a policy directive from the White House in April. The agency's Space Communication and Navigation Program, known as SCAN, is leading efforts on creating a coordinated time, which will enable a future lunar ecosystem that could be scalable to other locations in our solar system. Lunar time will be determined by a weighted average of atomic clocks on the moon, similar to how scientists calculate Earth's globally recognized, coordinated universal time. And that concludes our Intel briefing for today. Head to the selected reading section of our show notes to find links to further reading on all of the stories that we've mentioned. We've also added an update on Viper proposals under consideration by NASA, an announcement on CGI acquiring Aeon, and an announcement from IntelSat on a new terminal strategy. Hi, T-Minus Crew! If you would like daily updates from us directly in your LinkedIn feed, be sure to follow the official N2K T-Minus page over on LinkedIn. And if you're more interested in the lighter side of what we do here, we are @t-minusdaily on Instagram. And that's where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions, and even some behind-the-scenes treats. Links are in the show notes for you. Hope you'll join us there. Our guest today is artist Benediktas Gillis, founder of Portals. And he spoke to our producer, Al's Carus, about a new partnership with Sen, and started off by telling her about how Portals got started. I started my career as an entrepreneur in 2008. And I was constantly looking for revealing my true purpose in this life. I was constantly feeling empty during my career, and somehow I felt that there must be some greater cause that I should dedicate my life to. And this search led me to a very scary yet profound experience in 2016, where after realizing that I know nothing about the universe, I felt a deep connection with all living beings on planet Earth. It was life-changing, and after it became very difficult for me to live in our world and to see the constant separation, the hatred, I felt a deep need to create something as an opposition to that force. And I wanted to do it not in a rational way that would speak to the human mind, but I wanted to create something that would speak to the human heart. And this is how slowly I came up with the concept of Portals, which are technology art sculptures. They are all identical, built in different countries around the world, and they provide video live stream as a pure window between cultures, and invite us, humans of planet Earth, to meet face to face, heart to heart, above all borders, all prejudices, all descriptions, and to just realize our interconnectedness and to realize that we are all sharing this tiny spaceship called Earth, and the only way to continue this journey is together. I love that. It kind of builds onto the whole idea of the overview effect, but in a very different way, in a very grounding way of us being able to connect. And I'm sure a lot of people have seen the portal that's in New York, and they've been able to connect with Dublin. It's been in the news a few times. What has been the kind of reaction to people when they've gone to the portals? What is it that they're coming away from the experience and saying, "This is what I found from it"? Yes, it's very interesting for me to witness the portals and reactions, and I think the reason why they travel so far, especially in our collective consciousness, is because people have multiple opinions. Some people think that it's the worst idea ever. Some people think that it's the best idea ever, and some people see forests, some people see trees. And it seems that it's also a great mirror of our humanity in 2024, because we see a lot of light, a lot of joy, a lot of happiness. We also see some attention seeking, trying to gain clicks, trying to gain followers, and to shape the narrative. So it's like a collective story that we are all telling, and I think that constantly amazes me the creativity and the perception of people. And I think it's a healthy way also to run this project, is not to just drown in all the waves, but also to be just sitting somewhere on the cave and just witnessing all the waves come and go. And that really brings us to why we've invited you on the show, and that's your new partnership with Sen. Now, I just read this great quote from Charles Black, the founder and CEO of Sen. He said, "Sen and portals share a common theme that we are connecting people. Portals connect people in different places on Earth and Sen connects people with space." And he thinks that together you guys can come up with something truly unique, which I love. So what is it you're doing? You're connecting people here on the Earth, but now all of a sudden you're working with space? How does that work? Yes, I think portals are devices to change perception. And let's imagine if I spent 20 years living in my apartment and I had never stepped aside to just see the building. My perception of the building would be so, so limited. And now I feel that the biggest issue with our humanity is that our worldview ends with our national borders. And we are faced with constant global challenges, but still we are in this ethnocentrism phase of our evolution. And we need a global story. We need a global story as humans of planet Earth. And Sen is really helping us to just create this opportunity to see the planet as one. Because now we are still in this knowledge phase where we know, I can tell you everything about my apartment building. I can tell you all the facts, but the perception is missing. So now we are living in this era of knowledge, but we are far away from living in the era of perception of realization. What it truly means to live in this planet and to be a part of this planet. So I'm very excited about this partnership and I really hope that it will be a step forward for portals and for Sen as well. Without giving too much away, because I know we want to get people to go to the portals to really experience it themselves. What is it that people are seeing when they get to these portals? And where are they in the world where they can connect with the universe through those Sen cameras? Yes, so the first portal is in Vilnius, Lithuania. The second portal is in Lublin, Poland. The third portal is being transferred now to a more permanent location from the city of New York. So it will be announced in a couple of weeks from now. And portal number four is in Dublin and Ireland. Portal number five is being built for Brazil and portal number six is also being built for the location that also be revealed hopefully this month. So everyone who would stand close to the portal for three minutes, they would see another country. Let's say we are standing close to the portal number one in Vilnius. For three minutes we would see Lublin, Poland. After we would be transitioned to Dublin, Ireland. And after we would see Sen footage, the Sen live stream for three minutes and the trip around the world would continue in that fashion. That's amazing because obviously the camera that the Sen has is attached to the International Space Station. So it's actually looking down on the Earth from space, which is quite amazing. So you must see a completely different perspective every time that that comes around. You see these images of the universe, but really we really look down on the Earth. And I know that that's what a lot of the astronauts come away from the ISS coming back with that real connection to the planet. So is that what you're hoping to do with these portals? Yes, we hope to bring the overview facts back home from space to home. And we hope to make this experience available for all humans who are dreaming of going to space or all the humans that are asking questions that want to have a different experience of our home. And that is what we are hoping to experience with portals. So what's the long term plan? Now you've got these incredible pieces and you've now got six of them around the world. Is the idea to have as many as possible? Are they going to be more limited to larger cities? What is it you're hoping to do with portals in the future? Portals are built for all the citizens of planet Earth. And we do not see cities being more important. Of course, we like portals to exist in locations that would be accessible to people. And so far we have large cities, but also we are working with tiny cities. And in the future we will have hundreds of portals. But the ultimate experience of portals is of course standing close to one of them. But mostly 99% of people see them online. And we see them as this interesting sculpture. And somehow we managed to reach more than one billion people already. And portals represent a message, represent a question of what does it really mean? And they provide, they plant seeds that might change our thinking, that might change our perception. And writing that story, having this collective story is our goal. And building portals is a tool to achieve this goal by having this adventure of building portals, which is a very difficult, difficult endeavor, multiple steps forward, and sometimes even more steps back. So that's the goal, is to write a story together with our community of building this first of its kind network of sculptures, also known as Bridge to a United Planets together. I love that. What a great idea of connecting people. So as we are connecting people and you're obviously using the cameras and looking back down to Earth, is there any idea of how you would try and perhaps connect people to those that are off the Earth? Because we constantly have people on the International Space Station. It's kind of wonderful to see what's going on in there and have that insight through something like the portals. That's a great question and that's like a very popular topic among our team members. And I think that it would be important for people to fully feel connected to Earth, that they would also see people who are there at the moment and to just wave and connect. So I think it's a development for the future years, but I'm sure that it will happen. The question is when? We'll be right back. Welcome back. Here's a question for you. Why should Earth settle for just one moon? When so many of our solar system siblings have several, if not dozens more. I mean Mars is right next door and has two moons, so why not us? What? You're trying to tell me Earth isn't good enough for two moons? If you're feeling indignant on our home planet's behalf, don't fret, because Earth is in fact getting a second moon. But if you're wondering why you're just hearing about this for the first time right here on T-minus, well, it's because that new moon is diminutive, a mini-moon, if you will. Just 33 feet or 10 meters wide, so many. That small asteroid named 2024 PT-5 will be joining us and snared by our planet's gravity. And this actually happens every once in a while, where Earth's gravity grabs a near-Earth object and a little orbital dance with it just before the object breaks free. And last time was actually in 2022. And, like other mini-moons before it, this latest one isn't sticking around long, just 53 days. Little PT-5 will only make just one orbit around us, starting on September 29th, and then head out from Earth's gravity on November 25th. And honestly, even how things have been going here on Earth lately, who can blame it for wanting to head back out? [Music] And that's it for T-minus for September 16th, 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. 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 short review in your favorite podcast app. Also, please fill out the survey in the show notes, or even send an email to 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 was produced by Alice Carruth, our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Huster 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 Varmasus. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
