Happy New Year from all of us here at T-Minus. It's our first day back in the office, and we're mixing things up for 2025. We're going to be bringing you the T-Minus Space Top 5 stories every day, starting today. [MUSIC PLAYING] T-Minus, 20 seconds to L-O-I, 20 minutes to open a board. [MUSIC PLAYING] Peraton Space secures 200,000 people. [MUSIC PLAYING] Peraton Space secures $250 million in Q4-classified contracts. Ursa Major Technologies awarded a $7.65 million contract by the US Air Force. NASA's Parker probe successfully made its closest pass to the sun, India's Space Docking Experiment, or SPATX, launched on Monday. And over 1,000 pounds of space debris has been recovered in a Kenyan village. [MUSIC PLAYING] Today is January 2nd, 2025. Happy New Year. I'm Maria Varmasas, and this is T-Minus Space Daily. Our guest today is Twana Yezegah, and we spoke to Twana last year about how she's looking to leverage space technologies and artificial intelligence to create international solutions for the protection and improvement of global living conditions. It is a great chat, so definitely stick with us after today's T-Minus countdown. [MUSIC PLAYING] So starting from today, we're counting down the top five stories in space from around the world. And admittedly, it's been a quiet festive season while we've been out on our publishing break, but here are the stories that you need to know about to keep ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. Coming in at number five, Periton's space and intelligence sector secured over $250 million in contracts during the final quarter of 2024 to support the US federal government's classified programs. The company, which currently runs the GOKO contract at the US Space Agency's TDRS site, said the classified contracts support various government programs that are critical to national security and public safety. Periton says it'll continue to support the government through the development and maintenance of ground stations, advanced technical platforms, and cloud environments. It'll also provide systems engineering, verification and integration support, and deploy network and infrastructure to ensure the security of government systems. Or some major technologies has been awarded a $7.65 million firm fixed price contract for Space Launch System Propulsion Technology by the US Air Force. This contract is for follow-on work to mature advanced liquid rocket engines. Work will be performed at Ursa Major's Colorado Base and is expected to be completed by May 11th, 2027. Very specific date. Before we took time off for the holidays, we did report that NASA planned to make its closest pass to the sun, and on December 24th, it achieved just that. The Parker Solar probe broke its previous record, flying at just 3.8 million miles above the surface of the sun. The probe hurdled through the solar atmosphere at a blazing 430,000 miles an hour faster than any human-made object has ever moved. A beacon tone received late on December 26th confirmed that the spacecraft had successfully made it through the solar encounter safely, and NASA says that it is operating normally. ISRO's Space Docking Experiment, also known as SPADX, launched earlier this week. The mission aimed to develop and demonstrate technologies for spacecraft rendezvous docking and undocking using two small satellites. India's space research organization says these capabilities are critical for future missions, including satellite servicing, space station operations and interplanetary exploration. A PSLV C-60 rocket carried the primary payload, the SPADX, as well as 24 different experiments aboard the PoM4 secondary payload module. These include a walking robot arm, a debris capture robotic manipulator, a compact plant research module, and a range of sensors. The mission involves deploying two small spacecraft to demonstrate the transfer of electric power between the docked spacecraft. Each satellite carries payloads, including an imaging system and a radiation monitoring device designed to measure electron and proton radiation levels in space, providing critical data for future human spaceflight missions. ISRO chairman Asamanath said the actual testing of the docking technology is expected around January 7th. And for our top story today, Kenyan authorities are investigating what appears to be an incident of space debris crashing into a village in the country's south. The Kenya Space Agency KSA said a metallic ring, roughly eight feet in diameter and weighing more than a thousand pounds, crashed into Mukukku Village in Makoeni County on December 30th. Very fortunately, no one was injured. Their initial assessment has found that the fallen object is a separation ring from a launch vehicle, which are designed to either burn up on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere or fall over uninhabited areas. Witnesses who observed the incident said the object fell from space with a loud bang that reverberated for miles. Local residents immediately arrived at the scene and images shared on social media showed them handling the object bare-handed. Bolivius of any danger it might have exposed them to. KSA officials are working alongside a multi-agency team and local authorities and have secured the area and retrieved the debris, which is now under the agency's custody for further investigation. KSA said in a statement that this is an isolated case which the agency will investigate and address. They went on to say that the object was not a threat to public safety and praised the villagers nearby who had swiftly alerted authorities. The origin of the separation ring remains unclear and we will bring you further updates on the story when information is available. [music] And this concludes our first Intelligence Briefing for 2025. You'll find links to further reading on all the stories mentioned in our show notes. We've added three additional articles for you to read. One's on NATO working to reroute data through space, an announcement from iSpace Europe and ASI, and another announcement from Voyager Space and Leocloud. Hey, T-Minus Crew, if your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership or recruit talent, T-Minus can help. We'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to see more information, please contact us at twanagroup@gmail.com or send us a note through our website so we can connect about building a program to meet your goals. [music] Our guest today is Twana Yezaja, chair and CEO of Twana Group and the nonprofit AeroAI Global Solutions. [music] We aim to utilize space technologies and AI to create international solutions for the protection and improvement of global living conditions. And our key objectives include education, research and design of our own projects, and then the international implementation of those projects, and then also forging meaningful partnerships. So by collaborating with different stakeholders and working on national and international laws, we effectively address critical global challenges. So we have multiple projects in the works right now, and one of our current projects, so this isn't what the nonprofit is entirely made of, it's just one of the current projects that we're implementing right now, which is based on one of my journal publications from about three years ago. It's how to use these space technologies like radio frequency, radar, AI, and optical satellite imagery to monitor international human and wildlife trafficking hotspots. Not just to sound simplistic, it's a wonderful idea. Talk about improving life on Earth using space. I mean, this is such a fantastic example of how space can really make a serious difference in people's lives and also the lives of other creatures that we share this planet with. So anyway, but yeah, before we get into that, tell me a bit about the genesis of this idea. This is a great idea. So my work started a very long time ago, not in the space sector, but my love for helping people, animals, and also our environment started from a very young age. I actually wrote my, wrote four children's books about these topics, and my first one got published when I was seven. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Wow. I donated all the profits from all four books to animal charities to also improve the great work that they've been working on. So that's how I initially start to showcase, educate, how important education is, how important, you know, showcasing the sort of knowledge to like different audiences and being able to kind of showcase, you know, these problems to young children at an early age, so they also start talking and thinking about these problems as well. So I then started to delve more into the more technical journal publications and other publications work. But the reason why I started to get into like the technology and the legal side of things is because I start to see the power of like what law can do. And I saw that firsthand when I worked with the mayor of Istanbul when I was 19 to pass a law that banned horse-drawn carriages in the Princess Island. So it's an island close right off of Turkey. And basically turned the entire transportation system to electric cars and saved 1,500 abused horses. So I worked as the advisor for that and I came up with the Feasibility Plan for that. So no one lost their jobs. That's amazing. I'm sorry, that's just, that's really incredible. Thank you. So that's when I started to see how important working with regulators and lawmakers is because so they have had so many protests that show, you know, showcase that this is a big problem, how animals are being abused, whatnot, which is, you know, great for showing awareness and spreading awareness. But afterwards there's like the next steps are working with these individuals to actually come up with feasible ways to make permanent change. And that's what I always was interested in, the permanent change. And the only way to do that is understanding how the law works, working within it and working with these regulators to basically fit the system into their system. So that's another one of the big reasons why I also wanted to go into law school. So my background is I studied PPE, so philosophy, politics, economics, and minored in psychology. And then for my master's, I, the International Administration with a concentration in international space law, you know, people ask me like, why on earth are you doing law school if you're already doing these companies and the nonprofit? Because they know that's what I'm going to continue doing after law school. Yeah, you're not busy enough. I mean, yeah. Yeah, so I explained there are two main reasons why I wanted to go to law school. One of them is the more basic, let's be a good CEO, understand how the law works, you know, being able to, because these are going to be international companies too. So it's going to be a lot of work on our end to ensure that it's run properly. So that's just on like a very basic way of, you know, explaining that another reason why I wanted to go to law school is a lot of the work that we do is implementing international systems that also require a lot of knowledge on what to push for in terms of certain international laws and agreements, like bilateral agreements or regulations we put in place to actually ensure that permanent change that we're looking for. And a lot of the laws and regulations are so behind in this space sector because, you know, our technology improves every three seconds. So we need to be able to push for these proper laws. And in order to do that, you need to have knowledge on what exactly needs to be put into place, recognize that, and also have that credibility when pushing for the sort of change. So in the context of all this fantastic legal understanding that you have and that you can bring to bear here, as if you're not busy enough, you've got this, I mean, really impactful project really is underselling it. So tell me about Project Arrow AI Guardian. I know this is one of the many things you're working on, but I really want to make sure our audience hears you explain this because I think it's just really incredible. Arrow AI Guardian, basically our goal is to work towards a robust international system that's focused on utilizing these space technologies like radar, radio frequency, AI and optical satellite imagery to monitor international human and wildlife trafficking hotspots. But the main goal is to develop preventive measures to combat trafficking and to ensure the implementation of appropriate legal actions on an international scale. So basically an accountability system. So what makes this very different from just using satellite imagery and just pointing to a certain hotspot and asking, you know, just gathering that data is there's a government component to this. So we're seeking funding from Homeland Security, and we also want to partner with Fish and Wildlife Service alongside our partnerships with satellite companies to have access to all this data. And then we want to combine that data with some of our other partners and one of our partners is the Royal Foundation of the UK. So the Royal Foundation is United for Wildlife. It was founded by Prince William in 2013. And so they're also sharing their, kindly sharing their resources with us. So combining all that with some of the other data companies and then sending it to Homeland Security so that we can actually utilize all of this as evidence in court. So that actually helps their criminal investigations. And the Homeland Security and Fish and Wildlife Service, they have international investigations. So this isn't just monitoring hotspots in the US. It's all over the world. So this is very important because wildlife trafficking and human trafficking overlap quite a bit, for example, with unregistered vessels that do illegal fishing and then that also overlaps with human trafficking, for example. You would need radiofrequency to geolocate SAR and an optical satellite imagery to get that imagery side. And then AI also for pattern recognition, but you can't do any of that if you don't have the intel from the government either. So everything goes hand in hand. Either they have the intel and they don't have access to the sort of technology or they have the technology and they don't have access to intel. So either way, utilizing all these resources in a proper way is important to make actual effective and permanent change. So this is something that we're currently working on. It sounds like you're filling an important gap there. Capabilities or knowledge gap either way. That seems to be the goal that you're trying to achieve here, if I'm understanding correctly. Exactly, because NGOs have a lot to offer. These satellite companies, their amazing technologies, they have so much to offer. And obviously the government is also working on these investigations, but sometimes their manpower is not enough. They can't go to every, you know, try and fix every single issue. They need more help from these sorts of technologies that can help them also be more effective. So that's a huge part of our work. It's hard to sometimes envision how this is all going to play out. So a pilot program is necessary to showcase, look, this works. And then this is what we need. And then that's where the funding would come in. So that's where we're at with the projects. That's awesome. Thank you so much for walking me through that. And we have in essence the space industry listening through the show. Is there anything you want them to know, any kind of call to action, something that you need, something you want to tell them? So we are looking to partner with satellite companies that want to take that extra step and wanting to utilize their technologies for good. Because it's important to also remember that we still live on this planet. It's important to remember that this sort of technology can help improve life on Earth. Not just for us, but also like you said, the creatures that we share this planet with. And that's why I would encourage companies to think, okay, aside from our businesses, this is also another path that we can utilize our technologies for good for this sort of purpose. Because after the pilot program, there's going to be opportunity for more and more companies to join this big undertaking because no one can do this alone. Not a single company can do this alone. No single government can do this alone. An international problem needs an international solution. And we need all sorts of partners who can dedicate some of their resources to us to ensure that we're utilizing absolutely anything possible to address this very important issue. [Music] We'll be right back. [Music] Welcome back. While we are on our publishing break here at T-minus on December 29th, 2024, the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, died at 100 years old. He was president from 1977 to 1981, and he's not really considered a space proponent by any stretch. But in looking back at his legacy, perhaps it's time we tweak that perception. For one thing, there is a great article by Eric Berger on ours Technica that you really should read and we'll link it for you in the show notes. The article's about how Carter ended up being the president who saved NASA's then-nacened and troubled space shuttle program. Not because of his feelings towards human spaceflight, mind you, because Carter was not really sold on that idea to begin with, but because of the shuttle's utility in launching national security satellites, namely arms control verification satellites to keep an eye on cold war rival, the Soviet Union. Reasons aside, by President Carter sparing the shuttle's budget, the end result was the iconic space shuttle program that then ran for decades. And while President Carter wasn't the biggest fan of space necessarily, he does get a bit of the last laugh on all of this. His message of peace is on both Golden Records launched on the Twin Voyagers in 1977, which are now in interstellar space. His voice will outlast humanity and eternal space. He wrote, "This is a present from a small distant world, the token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe." [Music] That's it for T-Minus for January 2nd, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. We're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T-Minus are part of the daily routine of many 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. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Tre Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eibin. Our executive editor is Brandon Karpf. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] T-Minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
