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Long-term solutions for lunar exploration.

NASA selects companies for lunar study. UKSA tasks SPPL to investigate cislunar disposal options. Estonia to host ESA cybersecurity testing ground. And more.

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Summary

NASA selects nine companies to study supporting long-term lunar exploration. The UK Space Agency (UKSA) has tasked the Space Professionals Partnership (SPPL) to investigate Post Mission Disposal Options in the Cislunar environment. Estonia to host the European Space Agency’s new cybersecurity testing ground, and more.

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T-Minus Guest

Elysia Segal from NASASpaceflight.com brings us the Space Traffic Report.

Selected Reading

NASA Invests in Artemis Studies to Support Long-Term Lunar Exploration

Space Professionals Partnership win Cislunar Post Mission Disposal Study

ESA - Estonia to host Europe's new space cybersecurity testing ground

AST SpaceMobile Announces Pricing of Private Offering of $400.0 Million of Convertible Senior Notes Due 2032

BlackSky Ships First Gen-3 Satellite for Expected Launch in February- Business Wire

ispace Receives Telemetry from Deep Space Radiation Probe

Blue Ghost Mission 1: Live Updates

European Launch Startups Send Open Letter to ESA Outlining Key Priorities

Fundraiser by Jonathan McDowell : Fund Jonathan's Space Report Library Transition 

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Today is January 24th, 2025. I'm Maria Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. Black Sky ships its Gen 3 satellite to New Zealand, ahead of launch with Rocket Lab. AST Space Mobile is looking to raise $400 million. Estonia to host the European Space Agency's new Cybersecurity Testing Ground. The UK Space Agency has tasked the Space Professionals Partnership to investigate post-mission disposal options in the CIS Lunar Environment. NASA selects nine companies to study supporting long-term lunar exploration. On each Friday, our partners at nasaspaceflight.com bring us the Space Traffic Report, rounding up the launches from the last seven days and looking ahead at what we can expect in the coming week. Stay with us for that report after the headlines. And it is Friday, everybody. I hope you have a good one today. The US Space Agency has awarded new study contracts to help support life and work on the lunar surface. Nine American companies in seven states are receiving awards as part of NASA's blueprint for deep space exploration to support the Artemis Campaign. The selected proposals have a combined value of $24 million, and the companies include Blue Origin, Intuitive Machines, MDA Space, and Sierra Space. NASA says the next space technologies for exploration partnerships appendix R contracts will advance learning and managing everyday challenges in the lunar environment that were identified in the agency's Moon-Demars architecture. According to the announcement, the US Space Agency is working with industry, academia, and the international community to continuously evolve the blueprint for crude exploration and taking a methodical approach to investigating solutions that set humanity on a path to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Staying with lunar research, the US Space Agency has selected the Space Professionals Partnership to investigate post-mission disposal options in the CIS-Lunar environment. And the study will analyze the pros, cons, and risks of various CIS-Lunar post-mission disposal options looking at the impacts over the short and longer term. It will evaluate factors such as cost, implications on mission design, and maturity of technology, as well as the key risks involved for each disposal option. The study has already started and will conclude this March. The European Space Agency and the Estonian Space Office have set out to develop Europe's newest Space Cyber Range, and the range will aim to make space technology more secure and accessible for companies across Europe. The program will be provided by a consortium led by Spaceit to begin development. The ESA Space Cyber Range will offer a safe and cost-effective way for companies to test, validate, and develop secure satellite technologies and solutions, and perform cyber exercises and training. The Space Cyber Range will be a virtual environment that can be supported with a physical site to promote collaboration and provide necessary data centers, servers, and equipment. ESA says you can picture it as a sophisticated simulator where companies can create virtual copies of their satellites and systems to check for security weaknesses and practice responding to cyber attacks, all before launching real hardware into orbit, of course. So why Estonia? Well, it is already home to NATO's Cyber Defense Center, and the new Space Cyber Range will be established at Foundation CR14, which is Estonia's national cyber range facility. Moving over to the private sector now, and AST Space Mobile is looking to raise $400 million through convertible notes. The space-based cellular broadband network company estimates that the net proceeds from the offering will be approximately $387.9 million, but who's counting? According to the filing, the company intends to use any remaining net proceeds from the offering for working capital or general corporate purposes, which may include other strategic transactions. And Earth Observation Company BlackSky Technologies has shipped its first Gen 3 satellite to launch provider Rocket Lab. The satellite is planned for launch in February from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. BlackSky says the Gen 3 constellation will offer customers new mission-critical insights with the addition of very high-resolution imagery and AI-enabled analytics delivered at speed and scale. The company says these new capabilities will further enable BlackSky's space-based intelligence applications for tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and strategic intelligence operations. And that concludes our Friday Intel Briefing for you. Look for links in our show notes for further reading on all the stories that I've mentioned. And today we've included some links to updates on both Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost mission and I-Space's Hakuto AR mission, which are both successfully and happily en route to the moon. And six European space startups have shared an open letter to ESA, outlining priorities that they're urging ESA to consider when implementing the European Launch Challenge. You can read that letter and lots more over at space.ntuk.com/podcasts and just click on this episode. Hey, T-Minus Crew, tune in tomorrow for T-Minus Deep Space, which is our show for extended interviews, special editions and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. Tomorrow we have John Neal, Executive Director of the Space Industry Council at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, talking to me about advocating for space companies on Capitol Hill. Check out this interview while you are preparing for your trip to Florida for a commercial space week next week, just like Alice Liz and I all are, or waiting for the NFL Conference Championship Games to begin, or just catching up on chores around the house. You know how it is. You don't want to miss it. Elyseus Eagle from NSF brings us the latest Space Traffic Report. We are now on the way to the U.S. Space Station. While that spacewalk was happening, a rocket lifted off from China. Galactic Energy's Series 1 took off from Jochuan at 10/11 Universal Time on a mission called "On Your Shoulders." The payloads on this flight were four weather satellites for Yunyao Aerospace and one optical Earth observation satellite for, among other things, environmental monitoring and forest management. Series 1 delivered the five payloads into a sun-synchronous orbit. The next day, a Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center for a Starlink mission. It off occurred on January 21 at 524 UTC. Falcon carried 21 Starlink V2 mini satellites, but it was later observed from the ground that the rocket may have placed 23 satellites into low Earth orbit. These two extra passengers might have been a pair of Star Shield satellites, which SpaceX developed for national security purposes. However, we can't be sure without official confirmation. This was the first mission of Starlink Group 13, and a new group usually means that something is different compared to the others, even if SpaceX doesn't tell us what that difference is. Except for the two unknown satellites, this mission was very similar to launches for Starlink Group 6. After delivering the satellites into orbit, Booster B1083 ended its eighth mission by successfully landing on the deck of SpaceX's drone ship a shortfall of Gravitas. Later that day, we had another Starlink mission from the other side of the country. On January 21 at 1554 UTC, Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying 27 Starlink V2 mini satellites into low Earth orbit. This is the largest number of V2 mini satellites that SpaceX has launched on a single mission, which most likely means that this was a batch of the optimized V2 minis. The company recently revealed that Falcon 9 can carry up to 29 of these satellites, so this record might be broken again soon. The booster flying this mission was B1082, which flew for the tenth time. It successfully landed on the drone ship, of course I still love you. On January 23, we had another launch from China. At 515 UTC, a Changjiang 6A lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, carrying a batch of 18 satellites into low Earth orbit for the Qianfeng Constellation. This constellation of internet satellites is also known as G60 or SpaceSale. The first version of this constellation will consist of nearly 1,300 satellites by 2027, but there are plans to expand to a massive 12,000 satellites. This week's launch brought the total number of satellites launched to 72, and even though it was marked as Group 6, it was only the fourth batch of satellites. Seaming late, Group 4 and 5 have been delayed for an unknown reason. Later that day, a Changjiang 3B took off from Launch Complex 2 at the Shichang Satellite Launch Center, delivering a satellite into geostationary transfer orbit. We don't know much about the satellite, other than that its purpose is apparently to test communication technology. Back in California, another Falcon 9 lifted off on January 24 to deliver Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit. This time, 23 Starlink V2 mini-satellites flew up into space. At the end of its 22nd mission, Booster B1063 successfully touched down the deck of "Of Course I Still Love You." With the three Starlink missions this week, SpaceX has now launched a total of 7,800 Starlink satellites. These 816 satellites have re-entered, and 6,242 have moved into their operational orbit. Going into next week, on January 27, Falcon 9 is expected to lift off from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida with another batch of Starlinks. T0 for this launch is set during a four-hour window, starting at 1921 UTC. We may also have a new Shepard flight this week. Blue Origin hasn't announced anything about this launch yet, so we don't know if New Shepard will fly people or just science experiments this time around. Airspace notices indicate that a launch might be scheduled for January 28 with backup opportunities on the following days. For the next mission, we'll go to the other side of the world as a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, or GSLV, is set to lift off from the Satish Devon Space Center in India on January 29 at 53 minutes past midnight UTC. The payload is a regional navigation satellite for the Indian subcontinent that will be delivered into a geostationary transfer orbit. Back in the U.S., another Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch from Florida. The payload on this mission is the SpainSat NG-1, which is a Spanish satellite for government and military communications. Falcon is expected to lift off on January 29 at 3.34 UTC to carry this satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. The next day, Falcon 9 is set to take to the skies from Cape Canaveral to deliver another batch of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. The job is scheduled on January 30 during a four-hour window starting at 10.44 UTC. And wrapping up the week, we'll have a spacewalk on the International Space Station. This one was originally planned for January 23, but it was postponed to January 30 starting at 1300 UTC. The spacewalkers will be Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams. NASA's really putting the Starliner astronauts to work while they're up there. During the six-and-a-half-hour extravehicular activity, the astronauts will remove a radio antenna from the station's truss, prepare a spare part for the Canadarm in case it ever needs a joint replaced, and collect some samples from the station's exterior to test whether any microorganisms have decided to call it home. I'm Alicia Segal for NSF, and that's your weekly Space Traffic Report. Now back to T-Minus Space. [Music] We'll be right back. Welcome back. Jonathan McDowell, aka Planet 4589, who I have interviewed here on T-Minus in the past, is the author of The Space Report and has basically been the definitive one-man source for all things space objects, launch debris, really, you name it. And as I learned when I first spoke to him, the Space Report, which so many organizations around the world rely on for its extremely accurate and objective reporting, is actually Jonathan's side gig. Well, I should say it was. Jonathan is actually retiring from his day job at the end of 2025, and the Space Report will become his primary full-time focus then. And he needs to move his library of space documents with him to his new home in the UK to be able to continue his work. 35 years of spaceflight and space object data fills a lot of bookshelves, stacked with books and binders. He estimates around at least 10,000, in fact. So Jonathan is asking for help from those who have appreciated his consistent and reliable work over the last 35 years. In his own words, "His library is arguably the most extensive, at least the top five worldwide, technical, astronautics, history collection remaining, and I think it should be preserved. I am asking for donations rather than trying to monetize the report because I want it to retain its editorial independence." Given how important Jonathan's Space Report is to the space community around the world, that is an incredibly worthy goal. I think we can all agree. We have a link to his fundraiser in the show notes for you. In just the first 24 hours, he is already at 70% of his goal, which really speaks volumes about the incredible work he's done. And that's it for T-Minus for January 24th, 2025, 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 our show, please share our 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. Your KILFEE is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening everybody. Have a great weekend. [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]

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