Today is March 10th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] Thales Alenia Space selected to build a new communication satellite for Japan's Skyperfect JSat. >> Four. >> Swiss to 12 to manufacture Asia Pacific's first dedicated satellite to device spacecraft for Astrum Mobile. >> Three. >> Voyager Space partners with Palantir for a new AI space domain awareness application. >> Two. >> The US Space Development Agency delays the next satellite deployment for the Tranche 1 constellation due to supply chain disruptions. >> One. >> The US Space Force's X-37B space plane lands in California after 437 days in orbit. [MUSIC] Our guest today is Patrick O'Neill, Public Affairs and Outreach Lead at the International Space Station National Laboratory. Patrick's bringing us a monthly update on what science is being conducted on orbit, so stick around to find out more. [MUSIC] Happy Monday everyone. We're kicking off today's Intel briefing with an update on the US Space Force's secretive space plane. The X-37B landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California after 437 days in orbit. Like most of the details surrounding the mission, the re-entry was not announced in advance, with little details about the landing shared publicly. But what we do know is that it concluded the seventh flight of the X-37B test vehicle. The space plane design was first launched in 2010 and has spent as long as 908 days in space at a time. The vehicle is 29 feet long with a wingspan of almost 15 feet. Space force officials say the mission successfully demonstrated the ability to change orbits by using atmospheric drag to slow it down, saving fuel. Who knows when we'll see it in action again or what details will be made public about the mission in the future. And staying with the United States, the Space Development Agency has pushed back the launch of the Tronch 1-Layer satellites due to supply chain disruptions. The agency said in a statement, "With the added challenge of late supplier deliveries, it has become clear that additional time is required for system readiness to meet the Tronch 1 minimum viable capability." The spacecraft are part of the proliferated warfighter space architecture. The agency is launching the satellites in layers or tronches and currently has 27 spacecraft in orbit as part of Tronch 0. Those satellites are being used to prove the viability of the constellation. And then Tronch 1 will deliver the first operational capability. Tronch 1 vehicles were initially due to launch in September 2024, but were pushed back to April 2025. The SDA now says the launch is likely to take place in the summer. Despite the delays though, the SDA expects to meet its requirement to provide initial warfighting capability by early 2027. Voyager Space is expanding its partnership with Palantir Technologies to develop AI-powered solutions for enhanced space domain awareness. The open architecture space domain awareness or SDA system pulls data from existing on-orbit assets using Voyager's VPX signal processing electronics and chassis, signals intelligence software and mission services capabilities, and Palantir's AI/machine learning engines. The team aims to rapidly transition the SDA system from technology readiness level 4 to 8 as a hosted payload in 2026. Swiss212 has been selected to manufacture Asia Pacific's first dedicated satellite to device spacecraft for Astrum Mobile. Astrum Mobile itself is aiming to operate the very first satellite to device platform delivering 5G non-terrestrial network services over the Asia-Pacific region. Swiss212 will develop the NIA*1 satellite based on the small geostationary HummingSat platform. Astrum says Swiss212 was selected for its commercial approach, experienced satellite telecommunications team, as well as its small and agile spacecraft platform. No details were shared in the press release about the satellite's delivery schedule or the value of the contract. Japan's Skyperfect JSAT Corporation has selected Teluselena space to build a geostationary communication satellite. Teluselena space will be responsible for designing, manufacturing, testing, and the delivery of the satellite called the JSAT32 and will also provide the associated ground segment. The spacecraft is scheduled for launch in 2027 and will be designed to have an in-orbit lifetime of over 15 years. The JSAT32 will eventually provide coverage over Japan and its surrounding seas with newly added spot beams for mobility applications. It'll serve as a future replacement for existing Skyperfect JSAT satellites that provide communication and distribution services in Japan. [Music] That concludes today's Intel briefing for this Monday. N2K senior producer Alice Garuth has more on the stories that didn't make the top five today. Alice? Thanks Maria. We have two additional stories for you to read up on today. One is an announcement from Intel SAT and Max IQ on their new partnership with educators in multiple African countries. And the other one is an update on the launch of SPIRX, which should, fingers crossed, be taking off tonight. A reminder that links to all of those stories can be found in the selected reading section of our show notes, along with links to further reading on all the stories mentioned throughout the show. You'll also find those links on our website space.intuk.com and click on this episode title. AT-Crew, if you would like daily updates from us directly in your LinkedIn feed, be sure to follow the official N2K T-minus page over on LinkedIn. And if you're more interested in the lighter side of what we do here, we are @T-minusdaily on Instagram, and that's where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions, and even some behind-the-scenes treats. Links are in the show notes. Hope you'll join us there. [Music] [Music] A welcome to our guest, Patrick O'Neill. Public affairs and outreach lead at the International Space Station National Laboratory. Why don't we just dive in? Since you were just in Houston, yeah, tell me about that trick. I imagine you do this all the time, but that still must have been really cool. So actually, I really don't. This is so I've had the opportunity obviously to engage with a lot of the astronauts over the years, but this time around we wanted to try to put together a video highlighting some of the investigations or the general research that they were going to be supporting during their six-month science expedition, and so had the opportunity to go to Johnson Space Center, meet with Anne McClain and Nicole Ayres. They're the two NASA astronauts. They're going to be flying on Crew 10. And we just talked about the general excitement of the launch, the things that they're going to be doing on station. It's interesting too, because Nicole has this will be her first spaceflight mission, and then you have Anne. She flew in 2018-2019. And so some of the questions that we were kind of focused on was the juxtaposition, where Anne in 2019, when she came back down, you know, what were some of the science investigations that you worked on? And kind of interesting to see that how things have evolved since that timeframe, the last five years, just the general evolution also, not just of R&D, but also the types of facilities that are available. And, you know, kind of the impact that that's going to have for what this mission means. We also had the chance to talk about just the general sense of, you know, ownership and responsibility, like that they have when they're working on a research team's investigation. Oftentimes, these researchers are working with a project for many, many years. This is like their life's work in some ways. And, you know, that's not lost on the crew. And so it's, you know, something that they want to see through positively. They want to work with everyone in a collaborative fashion, because they recognize that, you know, that the few minutes they might have on working with an investigation could lead to some pretty profound breakthroughs that are impactful, not only for this research team, but for the scientific community as a whole. So it was a really fun conversation too, because Ann, she specifically talked about an investigation that she worked on in 2019 with the Michael J. Fox Foundation. And it was a protein crystallization experiment. And she was talking about how that was very novel at that time frame to be looking at neurodegenerative types of inquiry on station. But now, and then when she and I kind of got into it a little further, where there's a lot of neurodegenerative research that's happening on station. So she kind of got to be around from a pioneering perspective of supporting that type of R&D. And now there's just a lot of it across the board. And so it's, you know, from their perspective, it's kind of cool to see things that they touched back in the day. And, you know, it's kind of like the phrase, you know, sometimes they come back and now you're coming back even more pronounced. And there's so much more that we're able to delve into because we used, you know, the early times of station is kind of those building blocks. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I was thinking almost like the of the butterfly effect. But I mean, if you're an astronaut working on this, I mean, you're a hurricane, you're not a butterfly. Well, especially because like they, they, their days are so structured where oftentimes they don't really know the specific project that they're working on. Maybe until after the fact, because, you know, they all they know is, Hey, I have to go and pipette something. And it's, I had to go work in the Michael Gravitic Love Box and I'm setting up a project. And then afterwards, they realize the impact of what it is sometimes because again, they operate in such a strict, you know, timeframe where, you know, they only have maybe a couple of segments where they can work on a particular investigation, then they jump to another one, then they jump to another, then they jump to go and work out for a couple hours, then they go and have food and then they decompress. I mean, it's, it's a very, very busy day. And so again, sometimes they really don't understand all the projects that they're involved with until either after the fact, or if they're having briefings like what we kind of had with them prior to, or they're like, wow, okay, that's just really cool stuff that we get to work on. Yeah, I was gonna say they must be delighted that to know what they're, that, that kind of impact they've had. And also you had mentioned that there's new tools that they can use. I mean, given all the different payloads going up pretty regularly in just five years, I can only begin to imagine what kind of instrumentation is available to them now. Well, one of the ones that Ann brought up that she's excited to work on is, and again, it kind of harkens back to looking at protein crystal growth. But now you have the pharmaceutical in-space laboratory from our partners over at Redwire Space. And that is a facility that is specific to truly pharmaceutical companies looking at elements like protein crystal growth. And now you have a facility that is dedicated specifically to that, as opposed to mixing and matching a little bit. So that's a fun one. But yeah, there's a lot of, I look at the station as just the general evolution of it over the last 10 to 15 years or so. It really is a great proven ground, and it's turned into a fantastic incubator where companies and research entities have the ability to test and validate these new facilities that are now readily available for the research community to take advantage of. It's quite amazing. I feel like I say that every other sentence when I talk to you, I'm just like, "Gosh, that's so cool." So the crew that you spoke to, they're getting ready to go. I mean, they're going to be launching pretty soon, right? They will be launching pretty dog on soon here in Florida. So we're looking forward to that. And then once they get to station, then we'll bring the Crew 9 astronauts back. And then not long after that, we intend in the April timeframe to have SpaceX's 32nd Commercial Reciproplized Services mission funded by NASA. And that's when we have a lot of the science that's going to be going up. So think of it from the standpoint where, when the astronauts, they first get to station, they're getting their space legs about them and getting acclimated to their new surroundings. They're equally helping the Crew 9 astronauts package everything up so that that way they can have their journey back home. So it's going to be a very, very busy few months on station too. So again, I mentioned we have the Crew 10 astronauts that are happening very, very soon. We have the return of Crew 9. We have CRS 32. Then after that, we might be having a private astronaut mission. And then after that, we might be having another Reciplized Services mission to the space station, this time from Northrop Grumman. So the next three to four months could be a very, very busy one for station. And that's exactly what the astronauts want. That's what we want when we're sponsoring a lot of our science. So it's going to be a pretty crazy 2025. I love it. No, that's what is exactly what we want. Can you, anything you can tell me about maybe what would be going up in April or any preview? It's almost like I got a little cheat sheet right next to me. Yeah, it's for Keiger yet. It's finest. But I mean, there is a lot of stuff that's going up. So we have some tech demo investigation like this is again, we're validating things for the first time. So there's going to be a new imaging system that goes to the space station. There's going to be a couple of projects that are going to be on the outside of the space station, leveraging various external facilities. I can't tell you just yet, but there will be some legacy brands that are associated with this launch that we're pretty excited about. So the way that as a comms person, I always, I tell our science team, you know, nine out of 10 can be like that really hardcore science. But every now and then just give me that one where it resonates with the general public. And we can really not only just talk about that, but then sprinkle in all the other great things that are happening simultaneously. Grab that attention in that way that people, yeah, yeah, 100%. So we hope that that's going to be the case. There's going to be a lot of biomedical research that's going to be flying on this mission. You know, there's going to be some in-space production applications that are looking specifically at things like cancer research. We have bio-nutrient projects that are going to be flying. National Science Foundation is going to be funding multiple investigations, both in tissue engineering as well as in transport phenomena and fluid dynamics. So really a very diverse suite of science that's going to be going on this SpaceX CRS32 mission. So we're excited because our team right now is literally in the midst of gearing up all the content, talking about all the great research that's going up. So excited to share that with your community and just the general community at large, letting them know that their space station is truly, it's working on all cylinders right now. Oh, for sure. I mean, that's really clear. And it's always an exciting time, but it just, when you tell me about what's going on, I'm just like, what? We're doing that? It's just, I'm sure you don't get significant people react that way. It's like, I would never have imagined that was even possible in space. And it's just incredible to hear that that's happening. Again, that's what we want, though, is we want to keep pushing the boundaries and wanting to let people know that this is truly a unique setting where there's some great research that's happening that has benefits not only for us living and working in space, but also for us here on this planet. You know, how can we use that space station? How can we use that unique Michael Gravity environment to bring value to all of us right back here on earth? We'll be right back. Welcome back. At the end of last week, I have to admit, I was a bit sad to hear about the fate of intuitive machines as Athena Lander. She got closer to the lunar south pole than any other lunar Lander, and that is a feat to say nothing of, oh, making it to the moon in one piece. So let's not lose sight of that either. Yet to have her mission only last about 24 hours to say nothing of those payloads that couldn't deploy, an early end of mission is not the ideal outcome. No, but depending on your point of view, 24 hours can be a lot of time. And if you're a payload aboard Athena that didn't require an upstanding orientation to do your job, that 24 hours may have been enough to get some work done. And NASA confirmed that indeed they were able to make lemonade out of some lunar lemons and move their payloads aboard Athena to verify that they work and move in space. And Athena even sent back 250 megabytes of data to Earth for NASA. All of that will be helpful for future missions, as intuitive machines has two more missions already booked by NASA. And while I'm talking about commercial space lunar missions and their payloads, here's one to file away for the future that happened to have caught our interest this morning. And it's from Ice Space of Japan, whose second lunar mission via the Hakuto-R is currently en route to the moon. There is a lunar water electrolysis device aboard the Hakuto-R with the aim of producing hydrogen on the lunar surface, which would make them the first to do this. The water for this experiment comes from Kurita Water Industries, which today just signed an MOU with Ice Space for a future lunar mission to purify water on the moon. Takeshi Hakamada, who is the founder and CEO of Ice Space said, "We hope that this activity will be the first step towards the efficient recycling of lunar resources and that it will lead to the realization of economically sustainable activities on the moon." That's it for T-Minds from March 10th, 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 the show, please share our rating and review in your podcast app. These 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. You make you smarter about your teams while making your teams smarter. Learn how at n2k.com. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] T-minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]
