It seems almost a foregone conclusion that SpaceX's Starship is going to be launching more frequently, especially as they continue to have largely successful test flights. For example, yesterday's. Not that the US government operates on Vibes, but the FAA's recent guidance on the environmental impact of increased Starship launches just about comes out and says, "Yeah, there were six this year, but next year we're expecting 25." Buckle up, Boca Chica. Today is November 20th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmasas, and this is T-Minus. Starship's sixth success, sorta. NASA moves ahead with SpaceX and Blue Origin lunar lander missions. Airbus CEO urges the European space industry to rally. And today's guest is Añelo Violetti, space attaché for the Italian embassy, who spoke with me at last week's Beyond Earth Symposium about Italy's big year in space and the growing Italian space industry. That's the second half of the show. Stay tuned. Let's dive into our Wednesday intel briefing. The sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy was no less a spectacle than its predecessors. It successfully launched yesterday from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. There were plans to do another launch tower catch of the rocket booster, but that attempt had to be aborted, and the booster instead had a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Starship itself successfully reignited one of its Raptor engines while in the vacuum of space, which is a key testing milestone for the Starship, and then the ship softly splashed down in the Indian Ocean as planned. SpaceX says this is another testing success in getting the entire Starship system fully up and running for mission use. And with those plans in mind, the future of Starship means a lot more launches of said ship, and a number of those are going to be happening from the Boca Chica launch site. SpaceX is ramping up their plans to increase their Starship launches with the FAA's new draft Environmental Impact Report working under the assumption of up to 25 launches a year, with presumably 25 landings of the ship and the booster as well. As such, the new Environmental Assessment Draft's public comment period is open from now until January 17, and there will be five public meetings in early January as well. We've got a link to the Environmental Assessment Draft in our show notes for you with more details. NASA is advancing plans for sustained lunar exploration by assigning new cargo lander missions to SpaceX and Blue Origin under their existing contracts. These missions will deliver critical infrastructure to the Moon, and the plan is for SpaceX's Starship to land a pressurized rover in the early 2030s, followed by a Blue Origin lander, which will be delivering a lunar habitat shortly after. This move says NASA ensures flexibility and a steady pace of moon landings, and aligns with NASA's Artemis campaign goals to expand lunar exploration and prepare for Mars. Initial proposals for these demonstration missions are expected in early 2025, solidifying NASA's collaborative efforts with industry and international partners. It's been busy in European space this week with SpaceTechExpo Europe underway. Yesterday we especially had a lot of updates for you from the show, notably with a lot of new funding for European launch to ensure sovereign access to space. And today, Reuters reports that European aerospace leaders are urging European governments to boost support for defense and space industries, citing growing competition from U.S. and Chinese giants. Specifically, Airbus CEO Guillaume Fori called for industry consolidation, warning that Europe's "fragmented approach" hampers its ability to compete globally. Underlying Fori's comments and much of the action in European space are concerns over U.S. trade policy and NATO defense spending under a second Trump administration. Industry leaders argue that stronger collaboration and scaled investment are vital for Europe to maintain strategic and economic autonomy in both space and defense. Speaking of SpaceTechExpo Europe in Bremen, Germany, this next story is fresh off the Expo floor and is an exclusive from Space News. At the show, German launch provider ExoLaunch unveiled its Exotube adapter, a modular system designed to streamline satellite launches and deployments. Exotube is compatible with CubeSats as well as satellites up to 500 kg. It'll debut in 2026 aboard a U.S. medium or heavy lift rocket, with six constellation launches already contracted. ExoLaunch says Exotube enhances flexibility for satellite operators by making it easier to access launch opportunities across multiple vehicles. And this all comes as demand for rideshare launches outpaces supply, with SpaceX's transporter program already fully booked through 2025. Exotube's design includes a hexagonal base and cameras to capture deployment footage, making it a game changer, says ExoLaunch, for efficient satellite launches. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, or CASC, has completed a crucial test on the payload fairing of its Long March 10 rocket, which will play a key role in China's upcoming manned lunar mission. According to a release from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, engineers tested the fairing's design, separation mechanisms, and overall performance, and the results confirmed the fairing's reliability for future missions. The Long March 10 rocket, by the way, is set to debut soon and will carry heavy payloads to the moon and is also expected to launch both a crewed spacecraft and a lunar landing module. So this test marks an important milestone in China's plan to land astronauts on the moon by or before 2030. Aliria, a networking and laser communications technology company, has partnered with Space Domain and Situational Awareness Company, IC. This alliance combines IC's space surveillance capabilities with Aliria's AI-driven network routing software to offer satellite operators a comprehensive solution for traffic management, asset protection, and operational optimization. The two companies say this collaboration focuses on integrating IC's in-orbit monitoring technology into Aliria's space-time platform, which will enable improved space traffic management and more efficient constellation operations. The solution will use AI for enhanced decision-making, allowing operators to better respond to potential threats and optimized service availability. By joining forces, Aliria and IC aim to deliver advanced, cost-efficient space domain awareness and network management solutions to both commercial and government customers. Australia's Space Machines Company has tapped Leolabs to provide mission support for its upcoming Space Matri mission, which is slated for launch in early 2026. Leolabs will assist with mission planning, launch support, and safety of flight tracking throughout the mission's lifecycle. Now Space Matri is a joint Australian-Indian mission funded by the Australian Space Agency. Its goal is to advance space debris management and promote sustainable space practices. Space Matri will demonstrate a variety of space sustainability technologies using Space Machines Company's Optimus Orbital Servicing Vehicle, which will be launched into low-Earth orbit by India's New Space India Limited. During the mission, Space Machine Company's Optimus will perform a series of maneuvers to inspect and track space debris, and Leolabs will provide debris tracking, risk mitigation, and maneuver planning services. Orion Space Solutions has been awarded additional work from the US Space Force's Space Systems Command to support its Tetra-6 mission, and this extends Orion's previous Tetra-5 contract and will focus on advancing space refueling capabilities. This new Tetra-6 mission will demonstrate a new refueling technology expanding on capabilities developed for the Tetra-5 spacecraft. Orion's Tetra-6 small-SAT prototype is currently in development and is scheduled for launch in 2027, two years after Tetra-5. Both missions will operate in geostationary orbit for at least two years, and with these missions, Orion aims to be the first company to demonstrate refueling capabilities in Geo. [Music] And that is it for our Intel briefing for this Wednesday. As always, further reading in the show notes for your edification and delight, or over at space.n2k.com. 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'll help other space professionals like you to find the show and join the T-minus crew. [Music] Our guest interview today is with Aangelo Violetti, Space Attaché for the Italian Embassy, and I caught up with him at the Beyond Earth Symposium. Here is some of that conversation. [Music] Okay, my name is Aangelo Violetti. Everyone knows me Nello in the space sector. I'm the Space Attaché at Embassy of Italy, and I've been working at the Embassy of Italy since July 2021. I've heard that I've been a professional experimental test pilot in Massum my career. In 2017, someone in Italy decided to put me in the space sector, and basically I can tell you something that I didn't want to. I said, "No, I don't like space." And that was my starting point, because they said, "Well, you are a colonel of the Air Force, so you need... You know, we are ordering you. We are not asking. It's just an order." I said, "Okay, let's open this office, or open an office in the Air Force." We started this new strategy in the Air Force, and basically I can tell you, I like, since that time, I really understood what space they bought, and I'm enjoying since then being a space, a working space. I started with suborbital flights, because it was very close to what I was doing before as test pilot, and then I started to just climb up a little bit up to the satellites, and then Moon and then Mars. Then in 2019, I was picked up by the government, so I worked for the prime ministers in the office of the military council for space at the government, and I was pushing for Artemis Accords. I really thought that going to Moon was the next step for humanity, so we created this... Actually, we were in the first signatories of the first group of nations that signed the Artemis Accords, and this was my starting point to come here, because then they opened this new position, and they said, "From Italian government, we would be like to have you... to open a position in the US as space attaché, so I want this kind of national call." And since July 2021, I'm here, so that's a little bit my career. My goodness. Well, thank you for speaking with me. I really appreciate it. Italy is doing so much in space, and it is such a manufacturing powerhouse, especially in the space sector. I guess, what are you most excited about? What Italy is building for space right now? Well, you know, I think everyone knows, or should know, that we have built more than 50% of the space station, the International Space Station, so that was a good... It's a very good heritage that we are keeping more. And starting from there, basically, we are, as I said yesterday, we are already building the first two models of Axiom space, so we're really involved in the CLD business, and we are working with Axiom first, but not only with Axiom. We are working with other major players in the lower orbit, and as I said, we are working with NASA to build the first habitational model on the moon. So we are really... Actually, we are taking advantage of our heritage on the pressurized model, being the first to try to put men and women on the moon and to start this new era. And then maybe next on the Mars, actually, we are already working for some drilling technology for Mars from 1028, the next Mars mission. And we are trying to be as much as we can to create a new... To support this new approach to the moon and Mars. That's fantastic. And one thing that I love following in the news about new deals happening, working with the Italian space sector, is how international the collaborations are with the powerhouse that is Italy. So many different nations working with Italy on furthering their space missions. It's just very exciting to see. Right now, since we're focusing on the United States, for folks in the commercial sector in the United States, how can they better work with Italy? What's your advice or guidance on that? That's an interesting question. I think it's one of my main, I would say, area of competence this year. I'm trying to reinforce the bilateral cooperation from a commercial point of view. So I'm trying to... The biggest difficulty that I've seen here to create this collaboration is letting the US ecosystem know what Italy could offer to them. It's all about letting people know and company know and government know what you could offer. And this will speed up for sure the collaboration. In fact, just for example, we started three years ago and now in December we have the third addiction of the space day at the embassy. The idea is taking the companies, Italian companies here and let them show what they do, kind of little symposium with exhibition, to have the possibility to have all the US companies, Italian companies, get connections. So it's all about knowing what you can do. Well I was going to say, since I have you here, tell me a bit about what can the Italian companies do? Let's show off a little bit. Well, as I said, we can be a specialized model for sure. But we are really good also in the satellite communication. We are building... We are very good in Earth observation. We have some peculiar capabilities like hyperspector that we are developing and I think US companies are really interested in that one. Yes. There is huge, you know, willing to understand how we could cooperate in the Earth observation, for example. We have many research centers that are doing a lot of astrophysics. So we are really good also in the... You know, if we have this huge cooperation between NASA and ENAF, it's like astrophysical center on the... It's called... I don't remember the name, but anyway, like deep exploration observatories. So from using our optics and our satellites in combination with NASA. Yeah, pretty much like everything you can think in space because we could support. I mean, it's like we have more than 200 companies that are willing to work with US. And as you said, we are very good in manufacturing, but something that I'm trying to do to take like in the US business, the non-US companies. For example, we can use our automotive competencies. We have a very nice brand in the world. But it's not only a brand, it's like the technology and the... The knowledge. We have the knowledge that we can use this knowledge and share with space companies to build something for the future. That's what I'm trying to do. Like at the IAC, we saw Prada and the Space suit. I mean, that made humongous headlines. And I loved that as an example of that beautiful competency. I call it "contaminational space." Contamination? No kidding. It's like non-US space companies into space companies. I love that. But it's good contamination. It's good contamination. Since I have you here, anything else you want to let our audience know? I just want to make sure I sort of give you the last word, anything you want to leave our audience with. Yeah, I just would like to say that we are here to support. We're here for the Italian government, Italian companies. The Italian ecosystem is ready to start its journey to moon and Mars and starting from the lower orbit. So, you know, the National Corporation is a must. We can go there early together. There is no way that a single nation could be there. And we are here to build the future. We'll be right back. Welcome back. As we close out today's show, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the birthday of Edwin Hubble, born November 20th, 1889. For many of us in the space field, Hubble's work has been a source of inspiration, both the person and the telescope named after him. I know I was especially captivated by the Hubble Space Telescope as a little nerd let all the stunning images that it captured of distant galaxies and nebulae like, you know, the pillars of creation. It sparked my curiosity about the universe and helped set me on the path to where I am today. Now, going back to the man himself, Hubble's discoveries, particularly his observation that the universe is expanding, changed the course of astronomy. His work laid the groundwork for the Big Bang Theory and reshaped our understanding of the cosmos, you know, no big deal. And while we've seen even more breathtaking images and made incredible advances since the Hubble Space Telescope's launch in 1990 and certainly since Webb's launch just a few years ago, Hubble's legacy remains foundational. And of course, the Hubble Space Telescope itself is still very much operational. Its groundbreaking work is a fitting tribute to the man whose contributions continue to expand our horizons, even as we look beyond Hubble to the future of space exploration. Nonetheless, happy birthday, Edwin Hubble. And that's it for T-minus from November 20, 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's 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're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman, our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karpf. Simone Petrella is our president, Peter Kilpey is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmasus. Thanks for listening, we'll see you next time. Bye. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
