Today is January 25, 2025. I'm Maria Varmausis and this is T-minus. T-minus. Twenty seconds to L-O-N, T-minus. Go for Launch. Five. U.S. President Donald Trump has asked SpaceX to return NASA astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore home from the USS before their scheduled March return. Black Sky has been awarded more than $100 million from a long-term strategic partner in the international defense sector. Planet Signs a $230 million contract with an Asia-Pacific customer, aiding the rollout of their next-generation Pelican satellites. Scotland's government invests 20 million pounds in UK launch company Orbex. The European Space Agency has selected Talyselinius Space to build the Venus-bound and Vision spacecraft. And we continue recording live from commercial Space Week and today specifically kicks off this Spacecom event here in Florida. And I got to speak to artist Tim Gagnon about his design for this year's mission patch. So stay with us for that amazing chat later in the show. Not that I'm biased. Before we dive into today's headlines, I wanted to make sure we said thank you to all of the listeners who dropped by our booth yesterday. Tom, Lorenzo, Abigail, all y'all, thanks so much for coming by our booth and saying hi. It's always great to get feedback from you to help us improve how we can do this show even better. Thank you for your support, everybody. Now onto today's headlines. The European Space Agency has awarded Talyselinius Space a $383 million contract to build the Envision spacecraft. Envision will be the first mission to investigate Venus from its inner core to its upper atmosphere. ESA says it plans to launch the spacecraft in the 2030s. Envision's mission aims to figure out what made our most Earth-like neighbor turn out so different from our home planet. The contract was announced at the 17th European Space Conference in Brussels, Belgium. Talyselinius Space will begin working with the Envision team to finalize the spacecraft design and begin its construction. The Scottish government has invested £20 million in UK launch company Orbex. UK tech secretary Peter Kyle announced the investment at Brussels European Space Conference. Orbex says the investment will be used to fund Orbex's rocket Prime, the first UK manufactured and UK launched orbital rocket. Prime is set to take off from late 2025 at Scottish spaceport Saxaverde. The Shetland-based launch facility is one of two licensed vertical launch spaceports in Europe. In demand for satellites is forecasted to be worth $50 billion, which the UK forecasts will bring around $1 billion in revenues for the UK economy alone. Planet has announced a new $230 million contract with an unnamed anchor customer, furthering the rollout of its next generation Pelican satellites. The deal will see Planet build Pelican satellites for a company in the Asia-Pacific region that will be identified at a later date. The contract covers a couple of years to construct the satellites and then five years of operation. Additionally, Planet has signed a multi-year deal with the European Space Agency. With this contract, Planet joins the Copernicus contributing missions, officially contributing commercial satellite data alongside ESA's Sentinel satellite data to the Copernicus services. Geospatial intelligence company BlackSky has been awarded more than $100 million from a long-term strategic partner in the international defense sector. The lack of name of their partner is typical due to the nature of their intelligence work. BlackSky will be providing real-time, space-based monitoring capabilities. The new seven-year deal covers high-resolution, low-latency, current Gen 2 and upcoming Gen 3 imagery, and AI-enabled analytic services through 2032. And we're seeing the term "stranded astronauts" seep back into daily headlines again, and the source seems to be coming from the White House this time. U.S. President Donald Trump has asked Elon Musk's SpaceX to return two NASA astronauts from the International Space Station. Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmer are already scheduled to fly back on a SpaceX capsule in March. And for those not keeping up, they're the two astronauts that travel to the ISS on the Boeing Starliner capsule, which later returned uncrewed. Musk also said Trump had asked him to return the two astronauts "as soon as possible," suggesting a change to NASA's current plan for a late March return. And that concludes today's intelligence briefing. Head to the selected reading section of our show notes to find links to further reading on all the stories mentioned. You'll also find three additional stories for you. On what is believed to be space debris spotted burning up over West Michigan. And the second is an update on Blue Origin's New Shepard launch, which was planned for yesterday, but is now scheduled for no earlier than Friday. And it is Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, celebrating the start of the Lunasolar Chinese calendar, Gongshi Fasai. The celebrations have extended to low Earth orbit with the three-person Shenzhou-19 crew on Tiangong Space Station. Hey, team minus crew, if you find this podcast useful, please do us a favor and share a five-star rating and a short review in your favorite podcast app that'll help other space professionals like you to find the show and join the team-inus crew. Thank you so much for your support. We really appreciate it. And as I've mentioned at the top of the show, we are at Commercial Space Week here in Florida, and today is the kickoff for Spacecom 2025 in Orlando. I got to speak to artist Tim Gagnon, who designed the patch for this year's event at the conference, and he walked me through the design process that he goes through with the event planners. Welcome to team minus, Space Daily from Commercial Space Week, and joining me today is a very special guest who I've had the privilege of speaking to several times on the show. This is our first time meeting in person. Tim, please introduce yourself to our audience. Hi, folks. My name is Tim Gagnon. I am a graphic and portrait artist living on the Space Coast of Florida, just in the shadow of Launch Complex 39A. And so, honor to be here. Tim, it's an honor for us to have you here, and I'm so thrilled that I finally got to meet you in person. You are one of the people I greatly admire, because honestly, you have my dream job. I'm not even lying. Tim has many, many things, but he is known to so many of us as the man in the myth, the man who creates so many patches for space events like this one. And this is the patch that you created for Commercial Space Week this year. It is absolutely gorgeous. So we have often gone through this exercise, where we've kind of gone like element by element through a patch. So I think we're going to do that as well today. Do we have a good shot of the patch? Are we good? Okay, excellent. All right. So where should we begin with this beautiful piece of art? Well, the central feature is the three stylized launch plumes. And what they are designed to do in this patch is represent the close relationship between civil, commercial, and DOD. Oh, yes, makes a lot of sense. Because, matter of fact, I was in a session earlier today where they had a Venn diagram, where those three entities overlap. And so this patch was designed to illustrate that point. Much more dynamic than a Venn diagram, thankfully. Well, yeah. Venn diagrams are nice. They're instructive, but they're not very attractive. That's very true. The globe is designed to represent how we looked at the Earth before the advent of space exploration. You thought about the Earth. There was a globe on a desk, had the longitudinal, latitudinal lines, and you could study the map like every kid did in their grade school. Yes, yes, the lat ones. Well, kids in my age group. Mine as well. So we're in that group together. Yeah, it's on the left side, yes. And then on the other side is how we think of the Earth after the advent of space exploration. We've all seen the blue marble taken from the moon and other photographs by various spacecraft. Of the Earth from space. The stars, the bright stars represent the number of space calm events. This being this year's event launching from Florida. And then where integration ignites innovation. And then of course the date of the event. The two hidden Easter eggs, I guess you could call them. Oh, I love this. The star in space calm is from their logo, but it's a stylized representation because you cannot embroider gradients. You can't have that soft glow. Right, right. So you have to do something that can be stitched. And then the little rocket in space Congress, that rocket is meant to illustrate the very first bumper rocket launched from the Cape way back when in the late 50s. Oh, so that speaks to the space heritage here in Florida. I love that. Oh my good. So this time I speak to you. I learn all these little Easter eggs you put in your work. So much love and care. And something that we were talking about before we started chatting was I was just really curious. We're going to ask you the same question again. Sure. About I think anyone who's ever done embroidery work for a teacher or something knows you can't get anything intricately embroidered like this at just any old place. Can you tell me the information about how you get this made because this is quite intricate. Well, I like to use the same company that NASA uses. And actually NASA, the Department of Defense and Scouting all use the same company. It's Conrad Industries, AB Emblem in Weaverville, North Carolina. And they've got the legacy history of doing demanding work for very demanding clients. So I knew that they could handle a job like this. It's absolutely beautiful. And all your work truly. It's always a treat to get one of your beautiful pieces in my hands. This is no exception. You also have so many pieces on your person at the moment. Yeah. Well, today is the 39th anniversary of Challenger. Yes, indeed. So I always wear this jacket in late January. And it just felt appropriate the first day of Space Congress to wear it today. To remember those that we have lost and also the sacrifices. And then we have on this side Challenger in Columbia. These were patches designed for specific clients. The high flight up on top honors the four astronauts in the Apollo era that died in T-38 accidents because they never got officially assigned to a mission. And so they never got the chance to fly in space. But I felt they still needed to be remembered. Right. We wouldn't be here without them. And then of course the Apollo 1 patch. Absolutely. Yeah. All these patches are just so beautiful. It is incredibly important and appropriate that we remember those sacrifices, especially... Well, this kind of an event is actually perfect for that. Because this event shows that we are still building on their legacies and their sacrifices so that we can be bigger and better and maybe safer in the future. Let us hope so. And it is a celebration of what their sacrifices have enabled also. So we must appreciate them. And I am also going to just completely change topics. I am so curious what else you are working on right now. Because you have always got a number of things that you are working on. Anything you can tell me about? Actually there is. I have done a lot of work for the Mars Society for different analog missions. If you are unfamiliar, and they are not the only organization that do this, analogs are when a group of people go to a remote spot designed to simulate whether it is a mission to the moon, a mission to Mars. And you follow all the same protocols. For example, if you are on a Mars mission, it is a 20 minute communications delay. That is right. Yep. And since I have done that work for the last 10 years, I have been invited to participate in a Mars analog this spring at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. That is amazing. So I finally have designed a patch with my name on it. First of all, congratulations on two fronts. That has got to be so gratifying. Well it really is. Oh my gosh. That is so cool that you are doing that. Yeah. Well, it has crossed. It has not happened yet. But still, it is coming up to you. What did it feel like to put your name on a patch? It was, I did not have any trouble spelling it correctly. I once, years and years ago, had an astronaut after I submitted a design for consideration for his mission, sent it back to me and said, "Next time run it by spell check." Well, the funny thing about that is there was a patch designed by Robert McColl. A very famous illustrator, people who do not know, extremely famous. He is the legend. And he misspelled the name. So when I saw that, I felt a lot better. If it happens to him, it can happen to anybody. Absolutely. The astronauts who have gone to space and brought art materials with them, if I had to choose, those are all my favorites because to me that is something I can very deeply connect with. I think you are doing the same thing with your mission. It is just, on a personal level, it makes me so happy to know that you are doing this. It is so wonderful. Sorry, I am a little bit like, "Oh my God, so great." Is there anything else that you want to share with the audience? Again, this is beautiful. There is a lot of things in work, but just not a lot I can talk about. That is the agony and the ecstasy of doing this kind of thing. Because you want to shout it from the rooftops as soon as it happens, but I have a longstanding rule that I do not unveil the patch the client does on their own calendar. They have got a whole plan in place, what they are going to do, when they are going to do it. And I only receive permission to even talk about the analog mission just a little over a week ago. Oh, wow. The timing is great. I can share the news, but I just can not share a lot of detail. I will just say the patch is beautiful and I cannot wait for it to be unveiled to the public when it is time. And again, congratulations on that. Normally at the end of interviews, I ask for people to give advice to people trying to break into the space industry. I feel like I may have asked you this question before, but I kind of want to get your take on it now, especially that you are going on an analog mission about advice for artists. Because I know- As a matter of fact, I might have something that I can pull up. Because I try to anticipate what I might get asked. Back in the early '80s, I started writing to astronauts in 1973, as you know. And all the responses were very gracious. They appreciated my interest. They appreciated my passion. But inevitably, somebody else got the job. And a lot of times, Robert McCall was the guy that got the job. Well, I found out that in 1979, from like January through June, he painted that giant mural in the Teague Auditorium at Johnson Space Center. And in the process of doing that, he met with Chris Kraft and everybody. And Chris Kraft at astronaut meetings said, "You know, Bob would really like to do a shuttle patch. Why don't you guys ask him?" And I didn't find out until later, years, decades later, that that was the case. Well, I would get the response from the astronaut. We've already asked an artist, and that artist is Robert McCall. Yeah. You know, if I have to lose a job to McCall, I'm okay with that. Yeah, that's right. But- What is sentence, by the way? My goodness, right? And finally, in '82, I write to McCall. And I didn't get the advice I wanted. I got the advice I needed. And he said, "At the bottom of my letter," he hand wrote, "To achieve success, evaluate your talents honestly, set your goals realistically, work tirelessly at your art and love every minute of the work. Be the great art of the past, come back from inevitable failures and disappointments with courage and work relentlessly." So now, that's the advice I share. It is evergreen advice. And I think even for people who aren't artists, it's so much of that applies. It can resonate no matter what your passion is. I agree. You never give up. That's the message I tell kids. I started writing astronauts in 1973. I didn't get a yes until 2004. But now, 20 years later, many, many times since. And you are about to become an analog astronaut. And again, I'm just so thrilled for you. It's like shimmering through my body. I'm just like, "That makes me so happy." I want to know when- what should people know about what artists will bring to a mission like this? Well we just try to help illustrate what we see so that the public can have a greater understanding of what they're looking at and what they're learning about. Back in the early '60s, I think '62, NASA instituted an art program. And they invited artists to go to the Cape and go to Houston where astronauts were training and so forth and sketched them, interviewed them, learned about what they were doing, their missions and so forth. A little bit like NASA socials now, a tiny bit. Almost. Yeah. And they, matter of fact, there was one artist that was able to sit at breakfast with the Apollo 11 crew and then go watch them suit up. And yet all he had was a sketch pad and a ballpoint pen. Those are some of my favorite drawings ever. And the best thing about that is I'm friends with his son. The artist's name was Paul Calley. And his son, Chris, portrayed him in the movie First Man. I did not know that. Using the same sketchbook and the same pen. Are you serious? Serious. Now, when I heard about that from Chris, I was delighted. I was going to, even if I didn't like anything about that movie, the fact that he got on camera sketching Neil Armstrong, you know, Ryan Reynolds and all that, that made my day. That just made my day. My proxies. That's so cool. Okay. And the fact that he still had his father's sketchbook and pen. Yes. Oh my God. And I'm not lying. Those are some of my absolute favorites because they're so, they're loose and expressive. There's so much rhythm in those drawings. Just incredible. Oh, what he did with a pen. Oh, magic. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm like really into them. It's magic to see those. Every time I come across them, it just takes my breath away. And just, I'm sure he felt the weight of that moment. Oh, sure he did. And just, but he was fearless in his mind. And then right at the walkout. He, you know, he doesn't walk out with the crew because that's a, you know, photographic moment. He's standing out there next to Dick Slayton and the crew comes out. They get in the van. They're headed to the pad. And Dick Slayton goes, "So did you get what you needed?" I hope so. Otherwise that moment's gone. So NASA has reinstituted the art program. Yeah. And that would be a future goal to be able to participate in something like that. I think you should be top of the line for that, honestly. Well, there's a lot of very good artists out there. No, there are. There are. It's absolutely amazing, Tim. But I really, I mean, you have, you have been the model of someone who has worked relentlessly hard at this. And you're just like at the top of my pantheon of artists. I just really admire. I appreciate that very much. I really love your work. I just, and your work ethic also. And just so much about what you do. Just, I'm fangirling. I always do this to you. But I just genuinely mean it. And it's just been a delight to speak with you as always. So thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. My pleasure. I enjoyed it very much. . We'll be right back. Welcome back. If you missed our exciting news last week, we will be rolling out a new segment next month that dives into the experiments that are going on up on the International Space Station's National Lab. We'll also cover how to work with the lab and chat about why research in microgravity is a desirable opportunity. The ISS National Lab has released its annual report highlighting the rapid growth of space-based R&D. It also shares that nearly three-quarters of newly selected projects sponsored for flight were from first-time space users. That's certainly a good sign that folks are increasingly looking to space to solve issues both on and off the earth. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, also known as CASIS, has managed the ISS National Lab under a cooperative agreement with NASA since 2011. CASIS says that of the 103 ISS National Lab-sponsored payloads that were launched to the space station in the last year, 80 percent were from commercial entities. The lab reported nearly $25 million in external, non-NASA funding in support of ISS National Lab-sponsored projects, with almost half from academic and non-profit institutions. Additionally, startups secured nearly $147 million in funding after the flight of ISS National Lab-sponsored projects, bringing the cumulative total to $2.2 billion. You can read more about their annual report by following the link in our show notes and send any questions you might have to their team to us at space@ntuk.com. And that is it for T-minus for January 29, 2025, brought to you by NTK CyberWire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.ntuk.com. If you'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 that we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. NTK'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 Petrella is our president, Peter Kilpey is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
