[MUSIC] It feels like just moments ago that we were talking about the near closure of Astra Space, but thanks to a buyback by the company's co-founders, Astra has a new lifeline. And now they even have validation from the US Department of Defense. Someone's looking out for you, Astra. [MUSIC] >> Team, minus. >> 20 seconds to L-O-I, we're in. >> Go for the floor. [MUSIC] Today is October 23rd, 2024. I'm Maria Varmasas, and this is Team Minus. [MUSIC] Astra selected for a $44 million DIU launch contract. Redwire announces new biopharmaceutical partnerships. Umbra selected by SDA for a remote sensing contract. And our guest today is Kevin Hell, CEO of Empower Technology. We're gonna be talking about space solar power, so stick around for the second part of the show. [MUSIC] >> It's Wednesday, happy hump day everybody. Let's dive into today's story, shall we? Astra has been awarded a contract by the US DIU or Defense Innovation Unit with a ceiling of up to $44 million. The contract supports advancing and scaling the production capabilities of Astra's tactically responsive launch system to achieve the prototype objective of launching rocket forward orbit or sub orbit from the United States, Australia, or other locations. Astra ended more than three years as a public company on July 18th by completing a deal to take the company private at a tiny fraction of what it was once valued at. Chris Kemp, who is the co-founder and CEO of Astra, who also purchased the company back to save it from financial ruin, added to the press release that this, quote, award is a testament not only to our team's perseverance this past year, but also a validation of our vision for tactically responsive space. We're proud to have so many partners who understand and support the importance of point to point space delivery for national security and defense applications. The DIU contract facilitates the continued development of Astra's launch system to including the demonstration of automated laser welding capabilities in the production of rocket for advanced concepts of launch system to ground infrastructure and the industrialization of Astra's production facilities. No additional details were shared about when a launch might occur. Redwire is really pushing the boundaries for development in biopharmaceuticals and we are all here for it. The company has announced three new partnerships on experiments that will launch to the ISS aboard the SpaceX 31 cargo resupply mission. And the first new mission partnership is with Bristol Myers Squibb, also known as BMS. The companies will be launching an investigation to the International Space Station to study model small molecule compounds using Redwire's pharmaceutical drug development platform. And the research being conducted with BMS has the potential to enhance drug stability, streamline manufacturing processes and improve efficiencies across various therapeutic areas, including oncology, immunology and cardiovascular disease. Redwire will also be launching an investigation in partnership with pharmaceutical startup company, Exceza Libero Pharma, to study the novel drug ELP004, which prevents excess bone removal associated with numerous diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple myeloma and breast and prostate cancers. The third investigation is being conducted in partnership with Butler University. Redwire and Butler University will seek to produce high quality seed crystals in microgravity that could be used to produce pharmaceuticals on earth. Wow, we are really excited by all these developments and look forward to seeing the results of these investigations in the coming months and years. Umbra has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract by the Space Development Agency to demonstrate the feasibility of integrating its commercial remote sensing capabilities into SDA's proliferated warfighter space architecture. Umbra develops synthetic aperture radar-enabled spacecraft, capable of observations of areas of interest, which can then be downlinked directly to tactical nodes for processing, fusion and exploitation, thus eliminating the need for a direct ground terminal. Crossbow has successfully launched the third flight of its bolt rocket, the XB32 motor, which is part of Crossbow's bolt rocket family, is the largest advanced manufactured solid propellant motor ever flown. Crossbow says this milestone confirms the scalability and effectiveness of the company's approach, demonstrating that affordable, large-scale production of solid rocket motors is achievable. The launch was sponsored by the Defense Innovation Unit and U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, and with further support from Redwire, New Mexico Tech, DARPA, and Air Force Research Labs. We mentioned yesterday that it is that special time of year for quarterly financial updates, and several more legacy space companies have filed their reports this week. One of them is Boeing, which has suffered significant setbacks, to say the least, in its aerospace and space business, which recorded third-quarter revenue of still $17.8 billion, and a loss per share of nearly $10. Kerry Ortberg, who is Boeing president and chief executive officer, shared in the press release that it will take time to return Boeing to its former legacy, but with the right focus and culture, we can be an iconic company and aerospace leader once again. Going forward, we will be focused on fundamentally changing the culture, stabilizing the business, and improving program execution, while setting the foundation for the future of Boeing. Another legacy, Aerospace and Defense Company, General Dynamics, has continued to see growth. They reported third-quarter 2024 revenue of $11.7 billion, up $10.4 percent from the same period last year. They recently secured $605 million for multiple awards from the U.S. Space Development Agency to develop and integrate ground systems for the low Earth orbit satellite network. Engineering company KBR also reported their results, boasting revenue of $1.9 billion, up another 10 percent on a year-over-year basis. And, Teledyne Technologies reported all-time record quarterly sales of over $1.4 billion, which is an increase of 2.9 percent compared with last year. And if you love financial reports and really want to dig in on all of these, you can do so by following the links in our show notes. Israeli company SattexFi Communications has signed a $9 million software development and license agreement with MDA Space. Under the agreement, SattexFi will provide the modem and beamforming software for the SattexFi chipsets to be used in digital satellite broadband, low Earth orbit constellation payloads. SattexFi will also provide software licenses and a development kit to support MDA space deliveries to customers. The UK Space Agency has completed a critical design review for the AMBER 2 Maritime Domain Awareness Satellite. This spacecraft will play a key role in detecting what they call dark vessels at sea, such as those involved in illegal immigration, illegal fishing activities, drug smuggling, ship-to-ship transfers of goods and evading sanctions. UKSA says the satellite is on schedule for launch mid-2025. And honestly, I'm starting to feel like a bit of a broken record here, but tonight might be the night for crew 8's return from the ISS. Fingers crossed! The latest update says NASA and SpaceX are now targeting no earlier than 5 PM Eastern tonight, October 23, for the agency's crew 8 mission departure. An undocking tonight would result in a splashdown on Friday, October 25, just in time for Halloween, guys. And whew, that concludes our briefing for today. There are three extra stories that we've added to our selected reading section of the show notes today, just for you. One's on China, possibly sharing moon samples with the United States. A second is on new space reports covering Q3 trends. And a third is on Dislunar space. So go on and check them out. 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. That stellar review from you will help other professionals just like you to find the show and join the T-minus crew. Thanks for your support everybody, we really appreciate it. [Music] Today's guest is Kevin Hell, CEO of Empower Technology. I actually started my career as a spacecraft system engineer and so I have a background in that. And then after leaving that industry for a bit and working for the variety of technology companies, I was approached by a gentleman named Murato Kanden, who was a researcher at Sandia Labs, who developed a technology that we call now Dragon Scales. And he was spinning it out of Sandia Labs and he talked to me about the potential of this technology for particularly the space market. And I saw the opportunity and thought it was fantastic. So I have joined up with him about five years ago and we're making history now, which is great. Yeah, tell me a bit about Dragon Scales, please, because I was doing some reading about it, but I would love to hear it from you so I can learn some more. Yeah, sure. So what it is simply speaking is essentially taking terrestrial solar cells, laser cutting them to a specific shape that's required for a particular mission or application, putting those cells down onto a flexible substrate and interconnecting them in parallel or in series, which gives you a lot of advantages. And you can put that on a flexible substrate so that it essentially can conform or bend to any shape. So there's a lot of different applications, but it's particularly interesting for the space market and it has a perfect fit for a lot of the space missions that are emerging. One of the great things about it is, is that it uses technology that already exists, either in the semiconductor industry, pick and place tools, dispense tools, or also photovoltaic solar cells that also exist already in the terrestrial sites. We're able to take all of this and kind of put it together into a way to enable mass production, if you will, of solar panels, which has never really been done before for space. The big part of what we like to focus on in the show is the new space economy and the new space industry. And solar power is, you can't do much without upper and space. Exactly. So tell me a bit about more about how you all are sort of pushing things forward there. Yeah, in the movies, you know, they say in space, no one can hear you scream and we say, you know, in space, nothing happens without power. And, you know, what's happening, of course, is with dropping launch costs, more and more ambitious programs are being designed, you know, all types of, you know, leo constellations and lunar missions and space habitats, space and space manufacturing, and space power generation and beaming is another area that's kind of emerging. And all of these missions require lots and lots of power, but they also require power at low cost and power that's highly resilient. You know, the technology that's been used for the last couple of decades is based on Gali Marseneid. It's extremely expensive. It's extremely supply constrained. There simply isn't enough, you know, supply out there to even get close to meeting the demand that's emerging for space 2.0. And so what you really need is an approach that allows you to scale up to very significant volumes, which we do. You know, we use automated flux circuit assembly equipment that like pick and place tools and whatnot that are already there. We're working with a partner that is experts in this field and we can ramp up to super high volumes in a very short period of time. This major contract we just won is probably one of the largest, if not the largest space power deal in history. And, you know, we were able to kind of meet the requirement by having this manufacturing approach, which allows us to reach these very large volumes. And this specific deal is over 1.1 megawatts of power for 200 satellites. It's actually a good deal above that. We're not at liberty to tell you exactly how much it is, but it's a significant deal. And it's hopefully one of many in the future. Yeah, this is the Airbus deal, right? Is that correct? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was one of the reasons we definitely wanted to speak with you all because it was quite a significant deal. And again, we've been watching your journey for some time and noticing that you all have been getting some great funding rounds. And clearly the support from the market is there. And then this was just a great feather in your cap. We're in a really unique position. I mean, we are ready now. We don't see a lot of competition in the marketplace right now for what we have. We have manufacturing in place. We have 10 years of space heritage across six satellites. We've done the testing on the ground. And our entire manufacturing line is just ready to go. And no one else is close to that in terms of that combination of being able to produce that volume, having the proven space heritage, et cetera. So it's a great position to be in. It's a very enviable one, I'm sure. Maybe people are thinking, "Oh, going, wow, it's so awesome." Yeah, and given this, it's such a huge vote of confidence in the technology you all are developing, you must have some fantastic ambitions for what's coming down the road in terms of where you all want to expand. I mean, supporting CIS Lunar. I mean, I don't know, I'm throwing that out there. I have no idea. Yeah, no, absolutely. No, you're raising a great point. We actually have a engaged funnel of business that's worth over a half a billion dollars, just to put it in perspective. It's very significant. And the market segments that we're well suited for are, first of all, of course, low-earth orbiting constellations of satellites, where you're talking about hundreds, if not thousands of satellites. MGA, Aurora, the deal that we're supplying with Airbus has already been chosen for tele-satellites being, which is one major constellation you probably, I'm sure, have heard of. There are many others that we're also, I think, well suited for, and we believe that we're kind of the likely choice for many of these constellations as they become funded. So that's clearly one kind of near-term market for us. But beyond that, we have a number of other really exciting market segments that we're going after, space logistics, orbit raising, orbital transfer vehicles. We announced a deal with Firefly Aerospace and many others that are engaged in this area as well. We happen to be also quite well suited for electric propulsion systems because we're connected in parallel in series. We can get to very high voltages, which are very appreciated by electric propulsion systems. And so that's another area. Space habitats, we announced a deal with Gravidx as well, and because we're able to conform to different surfaces, we're quite suited for space habitats and curve structures and things like this. On the lunar side, we already have a contract with Honeybee Robotics, which is owned by Blue Origin for a vertical solar array for the moon. It's part of Project Artemis. It's essentially a charging station for the moon, for robotic missions, and eventually for manned missions that can be deployed and redeployed. It's essentially a very significant mass that gets deployed up vertically and provides a significant amount of power on the lunar surface. So we think we're quite well suited for that because of the resilience of the technology. Deploying and redeploying is going to put a lot of stress and strain on a solar system. And also, silicon does very well in the cold. We're based on silicon technologies. And so in the lunar environment, our efficiency goes up quite a bit. And then finally, the big longer-term market that we are very excited about is space power generation and then beaming that power using lasers or microwaves, either to the earth for remote sites where you can't get transmission lines or to other locations in space, to satellites that can receive the power to lunar surface, etc. So we have a number of engagements right now in that area with companies that are looking to leverage dragon scales for these large scale systems. That's an area that could become enormous in the future in terms of total watts into space and power perspective. That's an area that has been talked about for a long time. It's something I'm personally very interested in. And I was just wondering, you all are again very well positioned to to be at the top of that. So yeah, the technology still has some ways to go in terms of space-based solar power, but I was very curious about what you all were doing. Exactly. That's really cool to hear. I think it fundamentally comes down to the economics and what's going to the dollar per watt delivered. And I think with our technology, we can bring that down significantly. And that's what's really required. Order of magnitude or more relative to what it's been in the past for sure. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Space, the final frontier. I love saying that. Well, I've got some news that'll make all us Trekkies out there want to set our phasers to stun or maybe spend. Julian's Auctions, not Julian Bashir, different Julian, is gearing up to present bid long and prosper at the Infinity Festival in Los Angeles. This auction is about to beam up some incredible pieces of Star Trek history. And if you're Trekkie like me, I know you don't want to miss it, though. Hopefully you've got some deep pockets. So what can you expect at this interstellar event? Oh, you know, just a few iconic props, costumes, and collectibles from the entire franchise. And by the entire franchise, I do mean from the original 1960s series with the OG Captain Kirk and Spock all the way to the more recent Star Trek Picard. It is the ultimate treasure chest for fans, collectors, and let's be real, anyone who wants to impress their very nerdy friends with a replica tricorder. Maybe it wouldn't impress your friends, but it would impress mine. One of the crown jewels of this auction is William Shatner's own Starfleet Tunic from the original series. Yes, it is the tunic worn by the OG Captain himself, no girdle included. Just imagine owning that piece of sci-fi history. It's basically a license to boldly go where no fan has gone before. In style. And here's the kicker. This is not just about nostalgia, although there's a lot of it to go around. Proceeds from some of the items will benefit the Hollywood Science Fiction Museum. And those are the guys that rescued the Enterprise D bridge from destruction back in 2012, if you remember that Kickstarter? Yeah, anyway. So you're not just buying a piece of Starfleet. You're helping future generations discover their love for science fiction, technology, and all things geeky. So if you're in LA, head to the Infinity Festival on November 2nd and 3rd, and you can see these amazing collectibles up close. If you're not in LA like me, you're on the other coast entirely or further away. No worries. Julian's Auctions is live streaming the event so you can make your bids from anywhere in the galaxy or beyond, or at least from your couch. Live long, bid strong, and prosper. That's it for T-minus for October 23rd, 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 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 is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Karpf. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmausus. Thanks for listening. We will see you tomorrow. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
