Today is March 5th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] >> T-minus. >> Twenty seconds to alloy. >> Open aboard. [MUSIC] >> Five. >> Starlabs Space has completed a preliminary design review of their space station in collaboration with NASA. >> Four. >> Australia's fleet space technologies has acquired High Size, a provider of active seismic exploration technology to the minerals industry. >> Three. >> Spire Global announces third quarter 2024 financial results. >> Two. >> Astroscale UK and BAE Systems to collaborate on an ISAM demonstration. >> One. >> NASA selects Firefly Aerospace to provide the launch service for the investigation of convective updrafts or INCUS mission. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> And today's show focuses on the headlines and our intelligence briefing. If you're looking for more content, then definitely check out our Deep Space episodes available at space.entuk.com or our sister podcast, The Cyber Wire, available on all good podcast platforms. [MUSIC] >> Happy Wednesday, T-minus crew. Let's dive into today's stories from across the space industry. Up first, NASA selects Firefly Aerospace to provide the launch service for the agency's Investigation of Convective UPDrafts or INCUS mission. The mission aims to understand why, when and where tropical convective storms form and why some storms produce extreme weather. Firefly will carry three small sets as part of the mission to investigate the evolution of the vertical transport of air and water by convective storms. The contract is for launch services on Firefly Aerospace's Alpha Rocket, which will lift off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The selection is part of NASA's Venture Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Ride Share Launch Services contract. This contract allows the agency to make fixed price and definite delivery and definite quantity awards during the five-year ordering period, with a maximum total value of $300 million across all contracts. Astroscale UK has completed a study aimed at developing capabilities to refurbish and upgrade satellites for commercial use. The study was commissioned as part of the European Space Agency's System Studies for a Circular Economy in Space. Astroscale is collaborating with BAE Systems to develop an in-orbit refurbishment and upgrading service, also known as IRIS, to transition away from the current single-use culture in space. This initial system study will inform the next steps towards future commercial services. The IRIS mission involves designing a servicer satellite, which can rendezvous with a BAE Systems client satellite. The client satellite will be created in a modular serviceable way, enabling the servicer to robotically upgrade its specific modules in space. This study has provided a long-term technical roadmap to making in-orbit refurbishment and upgrading services the norm in the space industry by 2040, with a midterm objective being an IRIS in-orbit demonstration mission by 2030. SPIRE Global has shared their third quarter 2024 financial results and restated financial statements for prior periods. The space data company reported $28.6 million in revenue, representing 29% year-over-year growth. They say this growth was primarily driven by increased annual recurring revenue, with existing customers and growth in revenue recognized for both space services contracts and R&D services contracts. SPIRE was awarded contracts through NASA and NOAA during the financial period, and successfully launched seven satellites on the SpaceX Transporter 11 mission. They also shared preliminary full-year 2024 financial results, and they stated that they expect to issue full financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2024 later this month. Australia's Fleet Space Technologies has acquired HiSize, which is a provider of active seismic exploration technology to the minerals industry. Fleet says the acquisition will strengthen the company's end-to-end exploration services, streamlining the global mining industry's journey from data acquisition to AI-enabled drill targeting across the mineral value chain. Fleet Space's acquisition of HiSize follows its recent $100 million USD Series D funding round, more than doubling the company's valuation to over $525 million USD. Starlabs Space has completed a preliminary design review of their space station in collaboration with NASA. Starlabs says with the completion of the preliminary design review and an exacting Level 1 safety review, the station's architecture, systems, and integration plans are ready to advance the project toward certification with the intent to win a future contract for NASA utilization and astronaut activity. This achievement positions the project for detailed design and hardware development, leading to a critical design review to confirm the station's readiness. [Music] And there's more to come with updates on Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost mission and a milestone for the Lunar Data Center heading to the moon with IM2. And 2K Senior Producer Alice Karouz also has some more on the stories that didn't make the top five today. Alice? Thanks Maria. We have an update on Arian6's Arian6 launch which will hopefully lift off tomorrow. Starfighters Space have shared details on advances to their Star Launch platform, and iSci have signed new partnerships to advance space-based intelligence. And a reminder that links to those stories can be found in the selected reading section of our show notes, and over at space.ntuk.com. Just click on this episode's title. Hey Team Miners Crew, if you find this podcast useful and you enjoy the content, please do us a favor and share a five-star rating and a short review in your favorite podcast app. It will help other space professionals like you find the show and join the Team Miners Crew. Thank you. We really do appreciate it. [Music] We'll be right back. [Music] Welcome back. Quite a headline from NASA just dropped, and it quite simply says, "NASA successfully acquires GPS signals on the moon." And that success was achieved through Lugra, which is a joint investigation between the Italian Space Agency and NASA. And Lugra's payload is on the Blue Ghost lander that Firefly Aerospace just successfully placed on the moon's surface. And at 2 a.m. Eastern time on March 3rd, Lugra acquired and tracked signals on the moon from the very same GNSS satellites, GPS and Galileo, that billions of us here on Earth also rely on. And those GNSS satellites are pretty far out from Earth, about 11,000 miles from our surface, but they are a lot further away from the moon. Try about 214,000 miles. Quite a delta there. So, aside from the cool factor of this, the successful demonstration is going to be crucial for autonomous navigation of spacecraft or mooncraft. If we can successfully use GNSS infrastructure that is already in place and acquire those satellite signals, much like our autonomous devices on the ground here on Earth, those devices in space and on the moon could also use those signals to navigate without requiring input from human operators on Earth. That opens up a whole lot of opportunities for upcoming missions, including for the Artemis program. So, if you think a GPS-enabled, automated robotic lawnmower is kind of neat, just you wait until you see what we can do on the moon. And little surprise that as humanity continues its return to the moon, we're racking up quite a lot of new firsts like that one that I just mentioned. And here's another one. Courtesy of the currently enroute-to-the-moon intuitive machine Athena Lander and one of its payloads by Lone Star data holdings. Their data center payload was able to conduct a number of successful tasks, like encrypting and decrypting data, uploading and downloading files, and even some edge computing tasks for Lone Star's customers, all while enroute to the moon. No big deal. Edge computing in space is an area of enormous economic interest and growth potential, so this successful demo is another key step in proving the viability of this approach. Oh, and by the way, I have interviewed Lone Star's CEO, Chris Stott, in the past, so if you're interested in hearing more about all of this, go check out our March 16th, 2024 Deep Space episode for my interview with him, which is right after the success of Intuitive Machines' Odysseus mission last year, on which Lone Star had a payload as well. Definitely go check it out. [Music] And that's it for T-minus from March 5th, 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. You can email us at space@n2k.com or submit the survey in the show notes. Your feedback ensures we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. N2K's strategic workforce intelligence optimizes the value of your biggest investment, your people. We'll make you smarter about your team while making your team smarter. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpey is our publisher, and I'm your host. Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
