[MUSIC] It is Friday the 13th today, though I am not particularly superstitious. I am keeping fingers and toes crossed that despite the bright full moon, I might get a glimpse of the Geminiids in the night sky this weekend. Last week, Jupiter was at its closest to us and at opposition to the sun, but it was totally cloudy for me, so I missed it. Alice, are you superstitious at all? >> No, not really, Maria, but I do have a good space joke for you. >> Right. >> Okay. >> Are you prepared? How do you know that the sun and the moon have a bad relationship? >> How do I know that the sun and the moon have a bad relationship? Beak, I don't know. How do I know this? >> Because whenever they get together, it gets really dark. >> Ooh. >> [LAUGH] Wait. [MUSIC] >> Today is December 13th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmazes. >> I'm Alice Carruth and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] >> NASA releases its Mars Future Plan. The US House clears the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act. Brazil looks to capitalize on space launch opportunities. >> And every Friday, our friends at NSF bring you the space traffic report, taking a look at the launches from the past week and reviewing what's to come in the next seven days. [MUSIC] >> On this, the Friday the 13th, here is your good luck briefing. A little light weekend reading for you from NASA. The US Space Agency just dropped their Mars Future Plan, officially titled, Expanding the Horizons of Mars Science, a plan for a sustainable science program at Mars. This plan takes a look at the next steps in the Mars Exploration Program from now in 2024 through 2044, building on the last two decades of Mars Exploration and Science. And yes, Mars sample return, still in there. The whole plan is 154 pages long, so I would definitely be doing it a disservice to try and sum it all up for you now. But it is a 20 year look ahead at initiatives and mission ideas supporting the four main goals of the Mars Exploration Program, which are to determine if Mars ever supported or still supports life, to understand the processes and history of climate on Mars, to understand the origin and evolution of Mars as a geological system, and to prepare Mars for human exploration. And in the meantime, robotic exploration of the red planet continues apace, thanks to the perseverance of perseverance. After a grueling three and a half month climb, Percy has made it to the top of the northern rim of the Gisaro crater. New discoveries await as Perseverance will now embark on its 2025 Northern Rim Science Campaign, where it will take a look at some of the oldest pieces of Martian crust and amongst the oldest rocks found anywhere in our solar system. Go, Percy! The fiscal year 2025 US National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, cleared the House this week and is heading to the Senate. Congress has passed an NDAA every year since the first in 1961, regardless of divisions. The NDAA is a policy bill and recommends funding levels, but only appropriation bills can actually provide money. The bill recommends for the US Air Force to transfer space functions of the US National Guard to the Space Force. It also approves the establishment of a commercial augmentation space reserve akin to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet and requires an annual briefing from the Chief of Space Operations on Commercial Solutions for the mission areas identified in the Space Force commercial space strategy. The NDAA recommends funding at $883.7 billion, of which $849.9 billion is for the Department of Defense, which obviously includes the Space Force, which is expected to receive $29.4 billion. Brazil has passed a bill to establish a state-owned company to provide services for rocket launches. The organization will be known by the acronym ALADA, which means winged in Portuguese. It'll be allowed to negotiate launches with private companies. A move that Brazil's military argues will increase the amount of revenue generated by space missions. Brazilian Air Force Lieutenant General Rodrigo Alvim told legislators that the country's Alcantara Launch Center has more launch capacity than Cape Canaveral and three other US centers combined. The bill is awaiting presidential approval, which is expected once President Lula returns to work after emergency brain surgery earlier this week. India is pushing forward with its human spaceflight program conducting a mock recovery mission of their Ganga Yan capsule from the sea. The Ganga Yan crew module was recovered onto a ship's well deck, which opens to the sea and can be flooded with water so that the module can be hoisted post-splashdown and towed inside. The Indian Space Research Organization and Indian Navy collaborated on the mission, validating the overall sequence of operations, ground fixtures, and fine-tuning standard operating procedures. Virgin Galactic has signed an agreement with the Civil Aviation Authority of Italy to jointly study the feasibility of Virgin Galactic, conducting spaceflight operations from a spaceport in the Puglia region. Please don't add me Italians. The study plans to evaluate the necessary technical requirements for suborbital spaceflight operations in southern Italy and the compatibility of Italy's suborbital regulations with those in the United States. Phase one of the study is expected to be completed in 2025. Stokes Bay successfully held a static hot fire of their rocket engine in Washington this week. It was the first hot fire of the company's Block 2 Stage 1 engine, and this engine architecture called Full Flow Stage Combustion, or FFSC, is considered particularly challenging. Stoken SpaceX are the only two entities in the world that have successfully developed an FFSC engine. Details of the duration of the hot fire were not announced. Astrodigital, a developer of microsatellite systems and infrastructure, has announced that it will expand operations into Littleton, Colorado. The company expects to create 141 net new jobs in the state and will join 2,000 aerospace companies now operating in Colorado, which represents 26% growth over five years. Pretty impressive. Some NASA science updates now. Scientists have discovered that volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io are each likely powered by their own chamber of rolling hot magma, rather than an ocean of magma. The finding from NASA's Juno mission solves a 44-year-old mystery about the subsurface origins of the moon's geologic features. What the mission learned about the moon's gravity from those flybys led to a new paper by revealing more details about the effects of tidal flexing. And you can read all about that by following the link in our show notes. And NASA's Nancy Grace-Roman Space Telescope team has integrated the mission's telescope and two instruments onto the instrument carrier, marking the completion of the Roman payload. Now the team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center will begin joining the payload to the spacecraft. The observatory is on track for completion by 2026, and hopefully will launch no later than May 2027. That concludes our Friday Intel Briefing. As always, you'll find the links to further reading on all of the stories we've mentioned in our show notes. Hey T-minus crew, tune in tomorrow for T-minus 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 Aras Faze from K-Hound Space and Tim Sills from AWS, talking about data automation and space domain awareness. So check it out while you're holiday shopping, traveling to your kids' winter recital, or curled up by the fire to keep warm, as it seems we all are in the Northern Hemisphere at this time of year. Yep, you don't want to miss it. [Music] Our friends at nasaspaceflight.com are bringing us the Space Traffic Report. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF, and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for T-minus Space. Starting off the week on December 8th, SpaceX launched a batch of Starlinks from Florida. Falcon 9 lifted off from the Cape at 512 UTC, with 23 Starlink V2 mini satellites in its faring, 13 of which had direct to sell capability. The booster on this mission was B-1086, which flew for the second time. It first flew as one of the side boosters on the GoZew Falcon Heavy mission in June, and this is now the second Falcon Heavy side booster that SpaceX converted to fly as a regular Falcon 9. The first was B-1052, which started its life on two Falcon Heavy missions, then flew five times on its own and ended up flying as an expendable side booster on the Viasat-3 Falcon Heavy flight. B-1086 still has more missions ahead of it now, as it landed successfully on SpaceX's drone ship a shortfall of gravitas. With this flight, SpaceX has launched a total of 7,546 Starlink satellites, of which 681 have re-entered over the course of the program, and 6,073 Starlink satellites have moved into their operational orbit. We also had a launch from China this week. On December 12th, at 717 Universal Time, a Chongjiang 2D lifted off from the Zhou Chuan Satellite Launch Center. The rocket lifted five payloads into low Earth orbit and reportedly into three different orbital planes. The mission name roughly translates to High Speed Laser Diamond Constellation Test System, and based on this, it seems that the five satellites will test laser communications technology. That's about all we know, as no further details about the constellation or the customer have been made public. Later in the week, NASA's Lucy spacecraft flew by Earth for a brief visit. When it passed by our planet, it stole the slightest amount of Earth's orbital energy to increase its speed by 7.31 kilometers per second, a maneuver known as a Gravity Assist. On December 13th, at 415 Universal Time, Lucy screamed past the Earth a mere 360 kilometers above the ocean west of California. That's so close, the spacecraft had to adjust its orientation to avoid being destabilized by the thin traces of atmosphere up there. This was the second of these maneuvers since Lucy launched in October of 2021. The first happened exactly one year after its launch. This week's quick visit changed Lucy's path to intercept the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, a group of asteroids that orbit the Sun in a stable position at the same distance as Jupiter, leading the giant planet in its path around the Sun. The new and carefully planned trajectory should take Lucy through the asteroid belt first, flying past the asteroid Donald Johansson. Arrival at the Trojans is scheduled for 2027, and once there, Lucy is set to swing by and study no less than four asteroids before its path takes it back to Earth in 2030. But that's not the end of the mission. A third, and according to the current schedule, final flyby of our planet, puts Lucy on a course towards the other group of Trojans that trailed Jupiter in its orbit. Lucy is expected to arrive there 12 years into its mission in 2033. The next few launches were scheduled to take off around the time we publish this episode, or shortly thereafter, so they might already have happened by the time this episode gets to you. The first is another Starlink launch scheduled to lift off from California on December 13th between 1910 and 2310 UTC. This time, Falcon 9 is loaded with 22 Starlink V2 mini satellites destined for low Earth orbit. Next up is a haste mission from Wallops Island in Virginia. Haste is the suborbital variant of Rocket Lab's Electron, which is used to fly hypersonic test missions. T-Zero for this launch is set to occur during a four-hour and 15-minute window, starting at 45 past midnight UTC on December 14th. As usual for these missions, we don't have much information to go off of, but Airspace Restrictions mentioned the mission under the name Stonehenge. Then there's a Falcon 9 mission scheduled from Florida. Lift off is set for 104 Universal Time on December 14th from Space Launch Complex 40. On official documentation, this mission shows up as RRT-1. We don't know what this means, but we suspect that the payload might be the GPS-3 SV-10 satellite as it matches up with the published trajectory and hazard zones. If it is indeed the GPS-3 satellite, RRT-1 might stand for Rapid Response Test 1, or maybe Retro-Reflective Target 1, as this is the first GPS satellite to feature a laser retroreflector array from NASA. But it could also mean something totally different, too. Hopefully we'll get more information, and if we do, we'll let you know on next week's episode. Not too long after that, we should have the second flight of Space-1's Kairos rocket during a 20-minute window opening at 2 o'clock UTC. The rocket is expected to lift off from the Japanese company's own spaceport, Spaceport-Key, in Japan's Wakayama Prefecture. This mission carries five technology demonstration satellites to a sun-synchronous orbit. The solid-fueled rocket's first flight in March didn't go so well as it exploded five seconds after lift-off. The autonomous flight termination system triggered when it detected that Kairos didn't perform as expected. We wish Space-1 better luck this time. After several weather-induced delays, SpaceX's CRS-31 cargo dragon is now scheduled to return from the International Space Station on December 14. The spacecraft is set to autonomously undock from the station's Harmony Module at 16.05 universal time and return back to Earth for a splashdown off the coast of Florida the very next day. We'll also have a Chongjiang 2D launch on December 14. This mission is set to lift off from the Taiwan Satellite Launch Center in China around 1800 UTC. Next up on December 15, we'll have another Falcon 9 launch. This one will be conducted from the Kennedy Space Center, with lift-off expected during a nearly two-hour window starting at 2058 UTC. This time, Falcon will carry two second-generation O3-B M-Power satellites to medium-Earth transfer orbit for SES. The next Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg on December 16 during a four-hour window opening at 933 UTC. The payload is suspected to be the sixth batch of Starshield satellites for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Later that day, a Chongjiang 5B is expected to lift off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China. The two-hour and 14-minute window for that launch opens on December 16 at 10 o'clock universal time. Then the next day, we'll have an electron launch from Rocket Lab's own spaceport in New Zealand. Lift-off is set for a one-hour and 15-minute window starting at 1400 UTC on December 17. The mission is called Owl the Way Up, and if you're familiar with Rocket Lab's mission names, you might have guessed that the payload will be another strict satellite for SINspective. Back in Florida, another Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch on December 18. The launch window for this mission opens at 338 UTC and lasts four hours and 19 minutes. On-board Falcon 9 will be four micro-geo satellites for astronomers. These are much smaller than most geostationary satellites, so Falcon will deploy them closer to their target geostationary orbit. And wrapping up the week, we'll have a spacewalk on the International Space Station. On December 19, Cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Yvonne Wagner are set to leave the station for six hours and 40 minutes starting at 1510 UTC. During the spacewalk, the Cosmonauts are tasked with removing some science experiments from the station's exterior and relocating hardware for the European robotic arm. 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! They say it's the most wonderful time of the year, and for many of us, it's all about the holidays and spending time with families, but for many astronomy lovers, it's all about the Gemini's meteor shower. Yay! Yay space! The annual meteor show is thought to come from asteroid 3200 Phaethon, which is nearly three miles across and orbits the Sun every 1.4 years. At their peak, which is expected to be Friday into Saturday, you can see as many as 120 meters per hour. So why the name "Geminids"? It's because the meteors appear to emanate from the constellation Gemini. Now, while the Geminids are considered one of the most reliable meteor showers to experience annually, astronomers are warning that this year's display may not be as good as usual. For starters, they're competing with a full moon this weekend. December's cold moon will reach peak illumination at 4.02 am EST on Sunday, but it will appear full for several days. And then there's our weather to compete with, always a problem, and with cloudy and freezing temperatures expected across the United States at least this weekend. If you are lucky enough to have clear skies this weekend, look up for the Gemini constellation and enjoy the fireworks and send us pictures if you're lucky enough to capture them. That's it for T-minus for December 13, 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 review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or 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'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 Kilby is our publisher, and I'm your host, Maria Vramazes. Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful weekend! . Bye! [BLANK_AUDIO]
