Order up for an Iron Dome.

Today is January 28th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. >> T-minus. >> Twenty seconds to L-O-I, team, ready to open aboard. [MUSIC] >> Five. >> India completes the first Gaganyan crew capsule. >> Four. >> The Aerospace Corporation and Google are collaborating on space weather forecasting. >> Three. >> The US Space Force is rumored to be reducing their 2026 budget for in-space mobility. >> Two. >> The European Union calls for a European space shield. >> One. >> Trump signs the Iron Dome of America executive order to push the use of space-based assets to further the goal of peace through strength. >> Here are two. [MUSIC] >> Let's go. [MUSIC] >> And I'll be speaking to Lars Hoffman later in the show. Lars is the vice president of government sales at Blue Origin. He'll be talking about the contracts Blue Origin has lined up for government launches and what he's looking for too at Commercial Space Week this week in Florida later in the show. [MUSIC] >> And I'm coming to you live from Commercial Space Week in Florida and here are your headlines for today. Newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump signed an executive order late yesterday to establish the Iron Dome for America. The plan aims to further the goal of peace through strength. The name indicates a nod to Israel's Iron Dome system, but unlike their ground or sea-based setup, the US Dome would heavily rely on space. The order includes the acceleration of the deployment of the hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor layer, development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost phase intercept, and the development and deployment of a custody layer of the proliferated warfighter space architecture. The order has been met with mixed reception. Proponents are arguing that the system could provide global coverage and early intercept capabilities, while critics warn that they could trigger an arms race and undermine existing treaties. Only time will tell, we guess. And it's not just the United States looking to space for a defense shield. The European Defense and Space Commissioner, Andreas Kubeleus, called for a European space shield to unite its defense efforts in space. Commissioner Kubeleus told a conference in Brussels that the new platform aims to bring together information and demand for space launches in Europe. Kubeleus said that Europe needs to maintain leadership in space and should unite defense efforts in space. He also mentioned that the EU is planning to set up a platform for space launch services in the next two years as it tries to boost its competitiveness and autonomy in the sector of space. And speaking of space, the United States Space Force has surprised many by omitting funding for in-space servicing, mobility and logistics in its proposed financial year 26 budget, even after strong support from the National Space Council and the Office of Management and Budget. This decision shifts focus away from advancing critical technologies like satellite refueling and repair, which are essential for enabling dynamic and sustainable space operations. While the budget is still under review and could change, the move has sparked concerns among space enthusiasts and industry advocates who see in-space capabilities as key to the future of space exploration and defense. The news comes on the day of this space mobility conference in Florida and we will bring you the reaction to the news on tomorrow's show. The Aerospace Corporation and Google are collaborating on space weather forecasting. The partnership is looking to leverage the power of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. This partnership is expected to enable the prediction of geomagnetic storms days in advance with unprecedented accuracy and speed. And ISRO's Gaganian program, which will one day bring Indian astronauts to space, has successfully hit another important milestone on January 21st. India's space agency says its Gaganian crew module now has the liquid propulsion systems fully integrated on the module. Still more work to be done on the crew module though, before it is integrated with the orbital module, and then the first uncrewed flight of Gaganian is expected in just a few more months. And that concludes today's Intel briefing. Head to the show notes to find links to further reading. You'll also find an announcement from space robotics company Geetai, who have announced the full mission success of its in-house developed 16-new satellite. Hey T-minus crew, if you are just joining us, be sure to follow T-minus space daily in your favorite podcast app. Also please do us a favor, share the intel with your friends and coworkers. So here's a little challenge for you. By Friday, please show three friends or coworkers this podcast. That's because a growing audience is the most important thing for us, and we would love your help as part of the T-minus crew. So if you find T-minus useful, please share the show so other professionals like you can find us. Thanks so much everybody, it means a lot to me, and all of us here at T-minus. Today's guest is Lars Hoffman, Vice President of Government Sales at Blue Origin. - I'm Lars Hoffman, I'm the Vice President for National Security Sales at Blue Origin. - Thank you so much for joining me today Lars. It is a great time to be speaking with you. You all are just coming off of a fantastic success with the launch of New Glenn, it was thrilling to see it. You all must be feeling really fantastic right now. Congratulations first and foremost. Yeah, just I'm so curious, what was that like for you all, being at Blue Origin with that great success? - It was fantastic. I was there to watch it in person, and you could watch it and you could feel it as the sound hits you a few minutes later. It was fantastic to see dark black sky, big bright blue flame as it was climbing out, and a lot of excitement on the ground, and hugely successful first launch. - That's, and to many more, that's just really, what an exciting time for you all. Lars, since you're here, can you tell me a bit about your department at Blue Origin? - Sure, so National Security Sales covers all of the product services that Blue Origin offers to the National Security Space Community, and that's where we focus both on the defense side with DOD, primarily, you know, space command, space force, and on the intelligence community, primarily with the National Reconstance Office. So that's the people that we interact with on a regular basis, and what their focus is right now, is the launch capability with New Glenn, and with our space capability with Blue Ring. So that's where a lot of our conversations are focused. - Fantastic, so how is New Glenn gonna set up Blue Origin to work with all these federal agencies? - Well, New Glenn is a new heavy lift launch vehicle entering the market. We have quite a bit of capacity. We have a seven meter diameter ferry, which is twice the volume of current rockets that are launching national security payloads. So we're gonna offer a lot more volume there, we also have very heavy lift capability. We can lift 45 tons to low earth orbit with New Glenn, which is quite a bit, more than Safe Falcon 9 or Vulcan, and so we feel like this is gonna be a welcome addition to the National Security Launch Portfolio, and on the in-space mobility side, Blue Ring is something that's kind of a new entrant to the market, it's highly capable, high energy maneuverable platform that has the capability to host a bunch of payloads and do a bunch of different missions on any given launch. - Yeah, can you tell me a bit more? It is such an exciting time in space launch right now, and New Glenn's entrance is a very, very long anticipated and we're all very excited. And I'd love to hear a bit more about, you know, Blue's advantage over the competition, 'cause this is really what everybody's talking about right now. - Yeah, I'd say are a couple of things. Number one, I mentioned that the volume is twice the volume of current ferrings that are launching with Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy or Vulcan. Certainly larger than some of the smaller launched vehicles out in the market, and then heavy lift capacity so we can deliver a lot of payload orbit on any given launch. But the other thing that sets us apart, we're built this rocket to be reusable from the very beginning. I know Falcon 9 is highly reusable now, it wasn't at the beginning, but it is now, and Falcon Heavy is reusable with its boosters coming back as well. But New Glenn was designed from the very beginning to be reusable. So even on the very first launch, we try to recover the booster and we will continue to recover the booster on every launch and then we use those and that gives us a lot of availability and additional capacity for the launch market. - So you all had a great start to the new year, 2025. I've already started really fantastic. I'm sure there are a lot of really cool plans ahead for us. So what can we expect from Blue Origin this year? - Well, you can expect us to come back with a second launch here in the next couple of months. We are analyzing the first launch and the data looks really good thus far. So we're anxious to get right onto the second launch and then a third, fourth, fifth launch throughout the rest of the year. We want to start building up to that regular cadence in 2025 and then continue growing that launch volume, the number of launches then 2026 and going forward in 2027. - It's gonna be exciting to see. And speaking of exciting, Spacecom in Florida, it's gonna be my first time going, so I'm very excited to be there. And I know Blue's gonna be there too. So what are your goals as Blue Origin at Spacecom this year? - Yeah, it's an exciting conference because it's kind of a hybrid between space mobility and the Spacecom. We are really excited of course to talk all about our new Glenn first launch and plans going forward for new Glenn like we're doing on this interview. And also to talk about Blue Ring as it serves the space mobility community. On the Spacecom side of the conference, we're gonna be having a lot of engagement with our customers and suppliers, potential suppliers. There's a lot of people that approach us at these conferences that want to partner with Blue. So we're always open to that. We're looking forward to it. - Fantastic. Any final thoughts, partying words for our audience today? - Well, we are excited about our first launch, but this was as you pointed out earlier that first of many to come. And I say stay tuned. There's gonna be lots of exciting announcements coming out in the near future. We do have a new Shepherd launch coming up in the next week. So they'll be hearing a lot more about that and more new Shepherd launches to come, both with astronauts and with payloads. And I mentioned Blue Ring earlier, we launched a Blue Ring Pathfinder on the first launch. We're gonna be launching Blue Ring on future launches as well and expanding its impact into the the space mobility servicing logistics. And then our lunar program, we have committed to launching our lunar lander, the Mark 1 lunar lander later this year, all the way to the moon. So that will be the largest spacecraft to land on the moon ever. And looking forward to launching that on the new glade as well. So a lot of exciting things in 2025 for Blue Origin and looking forward to sharing that with all the people at SpaceCon. We'll be right back. (air whooshing) Welcome back. Some great news for everyone who enjoys gorgeous views of our Earth from the vantage of low Earth orbit. And that would be, I imagine, just about everyone. Our friends at Sen, who have been streaming live views from the International Space Station for many, many years, yesterday made available a 4K live stream of Earth views from the International Space Station via inter-satellite link, available for over 20 hours a day. Sen's vision is to ensure that everyone can experience amazing views of Earth and space like those experienced by astronauts, says the company. And they add that they hope that its 4K live stream of Earth will be accessed over time by billions of people, empowering everyone with live views of our planet to inform, educate, inspire, and benefit humanity. Until we can all get our ride to the International Space Station to experience what the astronauts do, this is just about the next best thing. Thank you, Sen. (upbeat music) And that's it for T-Minus for January 28th, 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're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Ventrella is our president. Pierre Kilpey is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music) - T-Minus. - Thanks guys. (thunder rumbling) (swooshing) [BLANK_AUDIO]