Today is March 4th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-minus. Icebase sets June 6th for Mission 2's landing date on the Moon. It'll launch a dedicated electron mission for Japan's IQPS on March 10th. AST Space Mobile releases Q4 and 2024 financial results. US Space Force selects BAE Systems for $151 million forage contract. ESA selects Redwire to design a new Mars spacecraft. And our guest today is Gareth Rogers, CEO at Farnborough International. And Gareth spoke to NTK Senior Producer Alice Carouse about the upcoming Farnborough International Space Show, so stick around to hear more on that. Happy Tuesday everybody! Let's get into it, shall we? Redwire has been awarded a study contract by the European Space Agency to conceptualize a spacecraft platform that could be delivered to Mars as part of the ESA Lightship Initiative. Redwire's Belgian subsidiary Redwire Space NV has been awarded one of four independent parallel industry studies to define the parameters for this interplanetary spacecraft. The consortium seeks to evaluate viable small-sat platform solutions for future missions to Mars, which shall be carried as passengers onboard Lightship. And for its part, Lightship will be an electric-propulsive tug that can carry passenger spacecraft to Mars and also offers navigation and comms services. Redwire's solution is built around an adapted version of its small-satellite platform, called Hammerhead, and its proven avionics capabilities, which launched most recently on ESA's HERA mission. No further details were shared about the contract value or on the timeline for delivery of the designs. BAE Systems has received a $151 million contract from the US Space Force's Space Systems Command to further develop the future operationally resilient ground evolution, also known as FORGE, command and control ground system. BAE Systems will receive the funding to build upon critical milestones achieved in Phase 1 of the FORGE C2 prototyping effort to deliver a prototype ready for SSC's next-generation overhead persistent infrared system. The Space Force says the contract aims to enhance the country's ground missile warning and tracking capabilities by developing a prototype designed for the next-generation overhead persistent infrared or next-gen OPIR system. AST SpaceMobile has released its Q4 and 2024 financial results. The Spacecoms company has had a successful 12 months. Abel Avelen, founder, chairman and CEO of AST SpaceMobile, shared that the company, quote, "advanced our customer ecosystem, formalized definitive commercial agreements, and expanded our US government capabilities." AST's first Bluebird satellites are fully operational in low-Earth orbit, with the production of a further 40 Bluebirds currently underway in their Midland, Texas, headquarters. AST reported nearly $1 billion, yes with the B, in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash as of the end of 2024. Now let's head on over to New Zealand, and Rocket Lab has announced a launch window for the first of eight planned dedicated electron missions for its Japanese customer, the Institute for QSHU Pioneers of Space, also known as IQPS. The mission, named the Lightning God Reigns, will launch from Rocket Lab's private orbital launch site in New Zealand during a launch window that opens on March 10. The mission will launch a single synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite to a 575-kilometer circular Earth orbit for IQPS, called QPS-SAR-9. The spacecraft will join IQPS's growing Earth imaging constellation that delivers high-resolution monitoring from specific locations every 10 minutes. And going to Japan now, and iSpace has announced a landing date and time for the Hakuto R Venture Moon Mission to "Brazilian's Lunar Lander." The Japanese commercial space company is aiming to touch down on the lunar surface at the Marais Frigoris. The spacecraft was launched in January, on the same launch as Fireflies Blue Ghost. But iSpace says, should conditions change, there are three alternative landing sites that are being considered, with different landing dates and times for each. A decision about landing will be made in advance, but the window for landing is open from June 6 through June 8, 2025. [Music] And that concludes our top five intel briefing items for you today. Alice has some updates on where you can find some more space news today. Alice? Thanks Maria. We've included three additional stories for you today in the selected reading section of our show notes. One on Russia's latest Soyuz launch, another updating the launch schedule for Spirex and Punch, and a third on NOAA terminating space advisory committees. And the links to those stories can be found in addition to our show notes over at space.n2k.com. Hey T-minus crew, if you are just joining us, hi and welcome, and 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. Here's a little challenge for you. By Friday please show three friends or coworkers this podcast. 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 so other professionals like you can find this show. Thank you so much for your support. It means a lot to me. [Music] Our guest today is Gareth Rogers, CEO at Farnborough International. Gareth spoke with N2K senior producer Alice Carouse about the upcoming Farnborough International space show. Alice started by asking Gareth where the idea of the space show came from. As part of the overall air show there was always a space zone, maybe it's a relatively large space zone within there. What became clear is that as space becomes a much more important area of the aerospace defense domain, it became clear that actually there was a need for a space show within there. In terms of pioneering that commercial space age, advancing space domain and also in terms of offering a platform that was outside of the air show, because actually the air show is buying and selling aeroplanes, buying and selling military equipment. Space can not be as prominent as it needs to be and actually it needs its own stage. So tell us a bit about what is going to happen this year. It's coming up really quickly in March. What can people expect to come to see the Farnborough International space show? So it's held 19th, 20th of March at the Farnborough International Conference and Exhibition Centre. It's the UK's largest space event in 2025. It's about connecting the entire space ecosystem across the industry. Many of the sort of events tend to be just focused solely on sort of upstream in the space market rather than sort of upstream and downstream as well. But it's across industry, government, defence, academia, but on a global scale as well. So I think we've got several thousand coming to the event of a 1200 organisations from 50 different countries. And it's about making space accessible for all professionals within the global industry. It's completely free to attend. It's got two full days of conferences from industry leaders and also access to the exhibition hall and many, many businesses from and exhibitors from around the world of space. Now my understanding is you've also got a bit of a parallel event going on at the same time as the Farnborough International Space Show. It's the 40th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment. Can you tell us a little bit about how that works and what it is that people can do and see at both of these different events and how they're running parallel together? So in terms of an International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment are a lot easier to call it ISRSE. But having said that, our team call it I40 because it's even easier. That is very much an academic-led conference from space agencies and academia around the world about remote sensing around Earth observation space. And it's about what are the next steps within that, but all related to environment as well. So what are the next steps in technology? So that's backed by the likes of NASA, NOAA, DLR, UK Space Agency. We have Lord Willis speaking on Day 1 who's the chairman of the UK Space Agency. And it really is about when we talk about that whole ecosystem and how the two shows fit together, this Farnborough Space Show is a trade exhibition with a usual sort of trade conference and some wonderful speakers within there. But this is about, well, actually, how do we link industry with academia and how do we link it with the next steps of where Earth observation and remote sensing is looking to go? Because ultimately, that will be the technologies that are being played out in the next 10 to 15 years. Yeah, absolutely. What would you say to an international audience of why they should be coming to the UK to learn about the space industry, but also why they should be thinking about the UK as a launch opportunity or possibly a place to manufacture and develop as well? No, it's a great question. It's a great question. So I think I'll probably say two or three things. Firstly, space is very linked to aerospace. And of course, the UK has a great heritage in aerospace and obviously from a Farnborough perspective, it's the birthplace of British aviation. So there's a clear link there. But in terms of the UK space sector, it's worth around 19 billion. I think it was 18.9 if I've been precise at the last count. But interestingly, 34% of the UK space industry comes from exports. It is an international industry and it takes a leadership within the European space market. Outside of that massive US space market, the UK is one of the leaders and is one of the key countries certainly within the European Space Agency, BANA. And we like to show that the leadership that the UK can offer to the world. And from our side, I think it's 18% of the economy already depends on space-derived services in the UK, which comes from information from satellites. So it's a fundamental part of our overall economy as it is anyway at the moment. And there's 50,000 people employed. It's high-value jobs, highly skilled workforce, all of those things that you would expect to see from an aerospace space-related sector. And of course, prestigious universities, Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, all of those sort of places, Sir Hansen and University of Sydney and Guilford as well. You know, great places where the space sector is advancing on a regular basis and actually doing a lot of global work already. Now, I've noticed when I was scrolling through your website that you have a government hub section as part of the conference. Could you tell me a little about the UK government hub and how it is you're hoping that it will work? So what we felt, and we've done this on other shows at the Farm Brewery show on a bigger scale, but it was, we invite UK governments to come and take part in the show. But actually, why don't we provide them a platform? Why don't we provide them with an opportunity and a place for them to meet, to show off what they do, for them to come and integrate and actually speak to industry, speak to academia, speak to the defence world. And I think that's really, really important because it's very, very easy to just parade government around at shows and that can be done. But actually, if they get into the nuts and bolts, you know, sort of lift the hood on the industry, then there becomes more benefit. And also, because we are a global show, you know, it's not just about the UK. It's how do you do business with the UK? How does the UK help you do business abroad? You know, and that's what it's there for. It's just a, it's probably, we've put it into one sentence, a physical manifestation of the UK government, but at the show, at a trade show. And we launched it for the first time at the Farnborough International Air Show 2024, and it was a roaring success. So it's a great piece and the government really appreciate it. What a great opportunity for people there. What else was it you'd like our audience to know about the FIS Conference that's coming up? You know, what is the big key pitch you'd say for this year? So I will split that into two. I'll talk about the exhibitors and then I'll talk about the actual conference program as well, because there are two great aspects to it, all sort of wrapped around that, you know, the great convening power that Farnborough has always been able to exhibit. So, you know, we have, we have sort of 80, 90 exhibitors and that's actually growing, you know, the likes of, you know, the major global companies, Babcock, Rolls Royce, Firesat, Lockheed Martin from the US, L3 Harris, you know, from the US, Kipsey, Global Space Port Alliance, Space House Central, Mag Drive, we have Cornwall Space Cluster, which obviously have a big place in the UK. And, you know, many, many more of that SME, but you've got the whole piece and alongside that is our business connections exchange, because it's about putting buy side and sell side together, as well as then the ability to speak to government. So that kind of sits within the exhibition piece and doing business. But of course then, these ability to learn and thought leadership, which is really important from outside as well. We're going to have more than 180 experts, space agencies, government officials, industry leaders, confirmed to speak at both the Farnborough International Space Show and I40. You know, that's one hell of a conference program. You know, speakers from Rolls Royce, Talys Elenia, NOAA out in the US, Babcock, ESA, UK Space Agency, we even got the Egyptian Space Agency speaking amongst many, many others. And, you know, I'd encourage people to go and look at the programs and come along to it, because there really is going to be some great insight and some great thought leadership piece. The team, I've pulled together a fantastic program across the two events from a conference side. And to me, that's really where the success of the show will be in those two areas. I mean, ultimately, it's about can you do business and can you teach things to people and help people with their business as they attend the show. [Music] We'll be right back. Welcome back. It is the week of the moon here in the United States, as we've already experienced the highs of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost's perfect touchdown on the lunar surface and were eagerly awaiting for Intuitive Machines' IM2's mission to join it. The Athena lander, which was launched on February 27th, fired its engines for eight minutes and twelve seconds on Monday, slowing the spacecraft down and entering lunar orbit. It's now all set to make a landing attempt later this week. And according to a social media post from Intuitive Machines, flight controllers plan to analyze data to verify the lander's targeted circular orbit and confirm Athena's expected landing time. They say that Athena continues to be an excellent help and is expected to send lunar orbit selfies over the next two days before making a landing attempt on March 6th. And can you believe it? We are going to see a second commercial lunar landing just this week. What a time to be a space nerd, huh? [Music] That's it for T-Minus from March 4th, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. For privilege, 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. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilby is our publisher, and I'm your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We will see you tomorrow. [Music] T-Minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
