A win for satellite-enabled cellular coverage.

[MUSIC] When Hurricane Helene wiped out basically all the terrestrial infrastructure in its wake, survivors of that terrible storm had a very hard time reaching out and getting in touch with emergency responders, or even just friends and family to let them know that they were okay. Satellite direct to cell text came in extremely handy for people whose phones had that capability. And it ends up, it was an important proof point in why satellite enabled cellular coverage is so important. And the FCC took note. [MUSIC] Today is November 27th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmausis, and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] Starlink gets direct to mobile approval from the FCC. Another successful land space launch. Satellite to expand IoT connectivity coverage. And today we're sharing a preview of my full fireside chat with TV sci-fi writer, creator, producer Ron DeMore of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and for all mankind renowned. Definitely do not miss it. [MUSIC] It's Wednesday, let's dive into our Intel briefing for today. It's a really quiet day for space news out there, but SpaceX's Starlink just got a really nice bit of news right before the Thanksgiving holiday. The FCC officially approved SpaceX to use Starlink satellites to provide direct to mobile connectivity for T-mobile customers. This is the first FCC approved collaboration between a satellite operator and a wireless carrier to deliver supplemental cellular coverage from space. With the goal of eliminating dead zones in remote and rural areas using unmodified mobile phones. We should note that SpaceX launched its first satellite supporting direct to cell service earlier this year. And the company plans to launch text messaging services via Starlink by the end of this year with voice data and IoT services in 2025. Current Starlink broadband requires specialized ground antennas. The foundation of the FCC approval comes from earlier temporary clearance that was granted for emergency testing during Hurricane Helene. That experience underlined the public benefits of satellite to phone connectivity, including emergency access and expanded rural coverage. That said, the FCC did defer on making a decision on increasing satellite transmission power to enable real-time voice and video calls in response to concerns raised by competitors about potential interference. In response to scientific and environmental concerns raised by NASA, NSF, and many astronomer groups about the proliferation of Starlink satellites, their brightness and their impacts on optical astronomy, the FCC highlighted SpaceX's ongoing efforts to mitigate these impacts, including alterations on material specifications, as well as changes in satellite design and operational strategies to reduce reflectivity. The FCC then went on to state that it is limiting SpaceX's authorization to 7,500 satellites with only 400 initially allowed to operate below 400 kilometers, contingent on further coordination with NASA. The FCC also stated that SpaceX must submit annual reports detailing its progress in mitigating satellite brightness and collaborating with the scientific community to protect astronomy and maintain a balance between technological advancement and environmental stewardship. FCC approval for SpaceX's full Starlink constellation of 22,488 satellites is pending. Speaking of commercial satellites, let's take a look at what's going on in China on that front. Earlier today, Landspace's Jiuquai-2E rocket successfully launched at 10 a.m. Beijing time, carrying two experimental satellites into orbit. The Jiuquai-2E is an upgraded two-stage methane oxygen rocket with a payload capacity of four tons to a 500 kilometer sun synchronous orbit. Landspace hopes that the Jiuquai-2E will lead China's commercial satellite launch market with competitive costs and reliable performance. Landspace plans to scale up commercial launches of its Jiuquai-2E and Jiuquai-3E rockets over the next two years to strengthen China's satellite internet initiatives and commercial space missions. SI has partnered with IoT satellite connectivity provider Sateliat to provide uninterrupted global connectivity for cellular-enabled IoT devices to access satellite networks as a roaming option when there's no terrestrial cellular coverage. The partnership will support a range of IoT applications, particularly in remote areas, by providing secure global coverage and ensuring connectivity in environments where terrestrial networks are not available. With SI's multi-network support, the goal of this partnership is for industries including EV charging, smart grids, manufacturing, agriculture, and logistics to benefit from enhanced connectivity across both urban and rural settings. If you've got college students in the family or if you are a college student, congratulations on getting through midterms. So here's a nice university-related story right before the Thanksgiving break. Space Florida's board of directors has officially designated the Florida University Space Research Consortium as the state's primary space research entity. This move will facilitate NASA research grants in collaboration with Kennedy Space Center, strengthening Florida's position in space technology and policy. The consortium includes the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and it aims to spur innovative research and strengthen Florida's aerospace ecosystem. This partnership is unique as Florida is the only US state with a university consortium affiliated with the NASA Center. Space Florida says this new collaboration will help attract new investments, advance research capabilities, and maintain the state's leadership in this space economy. And that is it for our brief, Intel Briefing for today. And that's it for our Intel Briefings for you this week, in fact, as we are on holiday here at N2K tomorrow and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. If you're celebrating, I hope you have a great one. We will be back on Monday with our daily show for you. And while we're not publishing our daily show for the next few days, we are dropping some special programming in the feed just for you. Tomorrow we have an encore presentation of our T-minus overview radio show with the amazing people who are hard at work recording and preserving space history. And Friday is my full interview with the one and only sci-fi legend, Ron DeMore. We're dropping the audio version in your podcast feed, but we have the full video version on social media. So find us on LinkedIn or on YouTube for the video versions. And Saturday, it's T-minus Deep Space, my full conversation with space cybersecurity expert, Clemence Parier from ETH Zurich. Lots and lots of great conversations for your heart and mind. And we've got some interesting and fun supplemental reading for you in our show notes and at space.n2k.com to carry you through the next few days, including some silliness like the pillars of eternity looking a bit googly eyed. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Hey T-minus crew, if you find this podcast useful, please do us a favor and share a five star rating and short review in your favorite podcast app. That will help other space professionals like you to find the show, enjoying the T-minus crew. Thank you so much for your support everyone. We really appreciate it. [MUSIC] [SOUND] Today for a very special treat, we have a preview of my full interview with Ron D. Moore, the writer, producer and creator of science fiction TV, including Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine, the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and AlbuTV Plus's For All Mankind, recorded live at the Beyond Earth Symposium in Washington DC. And we are running my full 30 minute fireside chat with Ron on Friday. So keep an eye out for it in your podcast feed then. Until then, here's a sneak preview for you. [MUSIC] >> The premise of For All Mankind is sort of an alternate history of the space program. And in the pilot episode, it posits the idea of what would have happened if the Soviets had beaten the United States to the moon at the last second. Like we fade into the pilot and a lot of people are watching a moon landing and the cronkite of our show is narrating. And for many you think he's narrating Apollo 11. And it's, no, it's actually the Russians and they beat us there. And the show says, if that had happened, how would things have been different? And internally what we talked about was, I wanted to do a show that was about the alternate space program. The space program, I thought I was getting as a child. I thought this is what it was gonna be. That's when I was growing up and I literally wrote letters to NASA and they would send me back full color photographs and they would send me early brochures on the space shuttle and all these amazing things and I thought that was the program we're gonna get and it didn't happen. So as I was approaching For All Mankind, the question was, well, what could have made the program go forward? Once we had Apollo, once we had achieved the great goal, how could it have kept going? And I had lunch with a friend of mine who is a former astronaut, Garrett Reisman, who was, he flew to the space station a couple of times. And he was a huge fan of Ballastar Galactica and we'd become friends down through the years. And he and I had lunch and I just wanna pick his brain and I said, you know what, I have this concept. What could have made the United States keep going? How could it have continued after Apollo? And he just kind of looked at me and he said, a lot of people don't realize how close the Russians came to going to the moon. I said, really? Cuz I kind of fancy myself a bit of a space aficionado. I knew the US program pretty well, but I wasn't aware really of how the Russians really did try for a time and developed rockets and landers and all this and then fell apart for a variety of reasons. And it occurred to me that if that had happened, if the United States had lost not just first man in space, first woman in space, first two men spacecraft, all those things. And had lost the race to the moon, I thought it would have freaked people out. And they would have doubled down on the space program in such a big way that it would have been an almost irrevocable decision to go and that it would have kept the Soviet Union afloat. It would have changed the whole geopolitical dynamic and that is the premise of the show. Is it from actually losing, we actually won. >> So in a way, it's almost like the show is a treatise on the nature of competition and cooperation, that's really fascinating to me. You mentioned sort of not realizing how close we almost got to losing and also what could have been. Is that why every season is like a gut punch in the open air? Cuz I've got to say it really, when we watch those first opening moments, it is really quite a gut punch of what could have been. >> Yeah, I mean it is. It's inspiring and it's kind of sad at the same time. Cuz we kind of feel on the show, this was the future we could have had. But we also feel like well, it's still the future that we can have if we choose to claim it, if we choose to do the things that are necessary to get there. And I think it's interesting to hear the panels, I've only heard a couple of panels, but the real problems, I get it. It's not just a flip a switch and we're gonna go. But I do kind of feel like you gotta wanna go. >> Yeah. >> It's like the thing first. And that I feel like the American popular imagination lost interest for a time or at least wasn't quite as heightened as it was for a time. And it feels like it's rekindled again. Periodically, NASA would do something that would capture the imagination of the Americans, whether it was rovers or the Voyager probes. And spectacular things would happen in the country and sit up again. And now we're kind of at one of those moments where we're watching reusable rockets land like they did in Forbidden Planet for God's sakes. You're watching things that seem like science fiction are actually happening in real time and it feels like there is a rekindled interest and desire to go do these things. >> Do we have the national risk tolerance to go do those brave things anymore? Do you think we're still have that spirit? >> I don't know, I mean, I think that's a real question. So it's one of the things we played around with in the pilot episode for all mankind. There's a speech where Ed Baldwin, who's the lead character, is in a bar and he's getting drunk and he's talking about how they had lost the moon to a reporter. And he goes on this whole thing about how the Apollo 1 fire had really made NASA risk averse. It was a national tragedy. It seared the consciousness of people and made NASA as an institution really risk averse and I could argue so to challenger and so to Columbia. To the point where we have elevated the concept of safety to such a height that it's almost like can we actually do anything with these kinds of requirements that to do something that is inherently risky, that is inherently dangerous. We lose test pilots, we lose carrier pilots, we lose air force pilots. People die in risky ventures and we accept that and we go on with our lives and they don't change the national priorities. So with space travel and manned space flight, we've got a whole like PTSD about it that we just are deeply, deeply afraid of losing another spacecraft with people on it. >> Yeah, and we wonder if we can conjure that national bravery. Again, it's a really fascinating question that I really love watching being explored in for all mankind. It's just really fun to be in that world. And one of the things fans like myself of for all mankind really enjoy is that sense of being rooted in reality. Can you tell me a little bit about how you achieve that on the show? >> It was really part of the ethos of the show from the very beginning. After that conversation with Garrett, they would do a lot of research into what the Soviet program really was. And as we started to develop the first season in particular, I said, okay, we're gonna stay within the guardrails of the technology that was available and things that NASA actually had on the books. There were all these plans for very spacecraft and things I'd never heard of. There were Gemini spacecraft, they were gonna turn into small space stations in orbit, there was all these wacky things. And there was like, we play around with a rocket called C-Dragon in the show, which was a water launched rocket of enormous size that could lift all this enormous weight, but it was a real thing and they really developed it. And so we said, we're gonna go with that. And at every step along the way, we had Garrett as one of our technical consultants, we had other outside consultants, some of whom had worked in NASA, some a nod. And we just tried to play it straight, like okay, how would it really happen? Could this really take place? And that has guided us all the way through the show to where we are. Even now, when we're in the fifth season, we're colonizing Mars and we're exploiting the asteroid belt, mining it. We're still trying to stay within our lane. Okay, we're not inventing warp drive yet. We're doing things that are at least scientifically possible that have been debated, that are talked about. And if certain breakthroughs happened, could be achieved. And so the show is trying to sort of paint a picture of a future that could potentially actually take place. Is everything in it the way the space economy works in the show? The helium-3 mining, which is, first they discover ice on the moon, then they have a mining facility and eventually helium-3 works. And eventually they get better rockets and they get better engine systems and they go faster than Mars and so on. Ever all of that stuff it felt like is still really possible if you have the desire and if certain things break your way. If certain politics break your way, certain discoveries break your way and there's certain revenue breaks your way. [MUSIC] We'll be right back. [MUSIC] Welcome back. As I belly up to the dining room table tomorrow, marveling in the incredible spread of food that, well, let's face it, my mother and I spent a ton of time making for our families to enjoy. I'll be sure to spare a thought for the crew aboard the International Space Station as they celebrate Thanksgiving in low Earth orbit. So what do the astronauts enjoy up there in Leo on Thursday? They do have a Thanksgiving meal of sorts, I'm happy to report. It varies year to year, but some version of smoked turkey, corn, candied yams, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, fruit cobblers. Yeah, not bad, right? You can bet it comes in a plastic pouch or foil packet form. Just needs hydrating and heating and there you go. Not exactly a Norman Rockwell painting kind of presentation, but honestly, after being in the kitchen for hours and hours and trying to coordinate all the parts of the meals to finish cooking at around the same time, so it's all hot and ready to eat when people sit down. Being able to have the Thanksgiving meal ready to go in ten minutes starts to sort of sound kind of tempting. And let's face it, their view up there is way better than anybody else's. Happy Thanksgiving everybody. [MUSIC] And that's it for T-minus for November 27th, 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 Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrell is our president. Peter Kilpey is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Vermazes. Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful holiday. [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]