Today is March 11th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. T-minus. Twenty seconds to all the lights, team. Open the floor. Five. China launched a new communications test satellite. Four. The US Space Development Agency has issued a solicitation to re-compete 10 Tranche 2 transport layer gamma variant space vehicles. Rocket Lab has scheduled its next two electron launches from New Zealand. RedWire reports Q4 and full year 2024 financial results. NASA outlines its plans for a phased reduction in force, closing several offices. And our guest today is Troy Morris, co-founder and CEO of Kall Morris. KMI has an experiment on the International Space Station and Troy will be sharing the latest updates on their work with us later in the show. It is Tuesday everybody. Let's dive into today's Intel briefing. We're kicking off with some troubling news from the US Space Agency and a memo sent to NASA employees yesterday. Acting Administrator Janet Petro shared that she would implement the US President's executive order to reduce the agency's workforce. NASA has already started implementing what they're calling a phased reduction in workforce. In the announcement, they shared that the Office of Technology Policy and Strategy, the Office of the Chief Scientist and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Branch have all been closed. Details were not shared in the message about how many roles have been or will be impacted by the reduction in force or RIF. All federal agencies have been instructed to produce plans for RIFs by Thursday this week, so unfortunately it will be reaching other agencies involved in the space industry also. We hope that those impacted will find other opportunities quickly and wish them all the best for the future. Redwire Corporation held an investor call this morning to share financial results for the fourth quarter and full year, ending December 31, 2024. The company experienced another solid year of growth, reporting revenues for full year 2024 at $304.1 million, which is up 24.7%, compared to $243.8 million for a full year of 2023. They have also adjusted their forecasting for the 12 months ending December 31, 2025, full year revenues of $605 million, which is up from $535 million. Jonathan Balef, Chief Financial Officer of Redwire, says the company enters 2025 with strong momentum as they look to close the edge autonomy acquisition in the second quarter. Rocket Lab has scheduled its next two electron launches from New Zealand. For the first time, the launch provider has announced a three-day window between launches. Rocket Lab will launch its next electron rocket no earlier than March 15 for a customer IQPS, followed three days later by its latest launch for Kinase. The high-five mission for Kinase is the fifth of five dedicated electron launches in a multi-launch contract with the company that will see Rocket Lab deploy an entire constellation of 25 IoT satellites in less than a year. The US Space Development Agency has issued a solicitation to re-compete 10 Tronch 2 transport-layer gamma-variant space vehicles. The call will be executed by the Advanced Fire Control Program, also known as AFC. AFC delivers operationally relevant prototypes to inform and influence future tranches. There is a potential for future mission integration of AFC prototypes into the proliferated warfighter space architecture's operational infrastructure. SDA seeks T2TL gamma space vehicles with a payload specifically designed to close future kill chains. SDA expects to make a T2TL gamma award to one vendor. More details can be found by following the link in our show notes. And China has launched a new test communications satellite from the Shichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan province. The spacecraft was carried by a long-large 3B rocket and entered the planned orbit. According to Chinese media, the satellite will be mainly used to carry out multiband and high-speed communication technology validation. And that concludes today's Intel briefing. Yes there are five additional links in the selected reading section of our show notes. The first covers the change at the top at Poland's Space Agency, the second covers change at the top of relativity, and we have three partnership announcements from Momentus and Solstar Space, SES and Link Global, and Zona Space with Trimbled. And a little reminder for all our listeners on where those stories can be found. As always we include links to all the stories mentioned throughout this episode in the selected reading section of our show notes. Those links can also be found on our website space.intuk.com. Just click on this episode title. Hey T-minus crew, if you are just joining us, hi and welcome. Be sure to follow T-minus Space Daily in your favorite podcast app. Also if you could do us a favor, share the intel with your friends and coworkers. We'll 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 the show. Thank you, it means a lot to me and all of us here at T-minus. Today's guest is Troy Morris, co-founder and CEO of Cal Morris. KMI has an experiment on the International Space Station and Troy is here to tell us more about it. The project has been many years in the running. I would have to really put my head down to it of when specific parts of it started. Some of its origin was before KMI to be honest. Some of the efforts with the University of Southern California who we continue to work with, NASA JPL, DARPA. There were some origins back then long before we ever found the technology literally sitting on a shelf and worked with a partner to get it from. It's some idea we threw together very rough sketches to working with the University, getting the patent pushed out together. We have the exclusive license on this technology. KMI took it fully in hand and developed it through testing, testing, safety, a lot more testing and now we've passed 100 days on orbit that this technology has been up there, the accuracy of a SpaceX ride. So a lot of partnerships to get there. I don't know anyone who does space alone. We've been very happy and successful working with partners. One of the neatest among the huge category of neat, awesome people has been Sunny Williams herself. We're working to, as she gets her feet back on the ground later this year to get some time with her again. As she has run all of her operations on station so far, she has a one in a, how many humans are alive right now? It's a billions perception on how this technology is truly functioning because we're doing our best with the data and the video and the video we've been able to share is awesome. The video we haven't shared yet, there's more to it. So the excitement vibes is coming from that perspective of the history. So again, I would say at KMI, we've been working on this in a organized, constructive way, even under the reach name since 2021. And then it was something that I know the team, once we got the permissions, the agreements, all the paperwork signed, I think it was nine months from green. Let's go to launch and we're on board the ISS. And that's something that we are bringing the largest payload by volume, by mass, by power draw that Ashurbi has ever seen. So there was a lot more safety meetings when you're not just pushing the envelope, you are redefining where the envelope involves. So it's something that to push that fast to do that much different and to be successful right out of the gate is huge. Oh, congratulations. I mean, that is no small accomplishment. And as I geeked out, I mean, I don't have to tell you this, it looks incredible. My goodness. So when I was reading about the success in December and I was like, oh, can we just see the video? It moves a lot more quickly than I would have guessed. For some reason in my head, I was expecting sort of a slow motion. It's quite impressive how quickly it moves. I was not expecting that. Yeah. And it's something that, again, that's within the safety confines of I've talked to quite a few different groups on multiple coasts of this country and some entrepreneurs around the world. And I remind them that, oh, this is great. We should take our technology and go inside the ISS. I'm like politely. If you don't have to, there is a level of space testing and then there's a level of human crude space testing. And there's a massive world that to all the researchers and all the technologists out there getting something to be human safe is a challenge even beyond what we were preparing to be asset space of, you know, if you've got something that squeezes a little bit hard on a aluminum or a steel shell, the drum isn't going to complain. Obviously, once you add humans into the mix, we're fleshy. We're filled with all these fluids. We don't like getting pierced. Ugly bags of mostly water, if I remember that correctly. So it's something that, yeah, the speed, the motion, the extra deburring, just so much extra to be intentionally safe in every step that we've been doing. And then the videos continue to blow people out the water. I'm like, that's great, but I feel like the guy watching the movie, I'm like, I'm glad you guys all enjoyed, you know, Lord of the Rings. I'm worried about the horses that I had to get on set. And so it's fun being on this side of producing this amazing work for people to look at. And this is again, just a test video of what we're doing in the larger scheme. Yeah. I want to hear about that. I'm sure that that's what you all have been working on that already. And this is sort of like, yes, that validation. I'm so curious though, what you've heard from Sunny so far. I would love to be like a fly on the wall for anything you've heard so far. It's been very positive. I don't have any direct quotes that are clear yet for press release, but I know some of her, the early reactions of various crew was, wow, it didn't just work. It's working great. I mean, for example, KMI was prepared to do our calibration test in the very first session. And we cruise through that to the point of we still had spare time, which you never have spare time doing space operations. Spare time. And so we started into the actual testing during a calibration setting of like, does it turn off and on? We had time. So we did some early runs there. So again, it's just been dang busters is the best way I can put it. That's amazing. I keep saying congratulations, but truly, I mean, that's that all of that is just incredible. I can tell, and I want to hear what's next because this is such a great step. So I'm sure this is just a springboard for all sorts of things you're working on now. Yeah. So in the short term picture, again, I said in the calibration test, we did nine capture runs when we were expecting to do zero. So that was a great step. Then in the second session, because we have completed three of this planned session so far in the second session, we did 12 runs. And I want to clarify for those of science, not every single run is 100% perfect capture. Sometimes something goes wrong. The wrong command has been given and everyone thought the Astrobee, the platform we're on was going to go forward. And it did not because someone hit the wrong key. But that happens. And so we're like, okay, how does the system react if only three fourths of it are hitting the object or trying to capture? And then in this last third session we did just briefly ago, we did 33 captures. So I am not the world's fastest mathematician, but from nine to 12 to 33 over a similar unit of time, we're getting good at this. And that's the excitement we have for our upcoming session four and looking at some additional sessions is now some of our terrestrial partners have some further curiosity like, what if you did XYZ? And so we've got tumbling coming up. We've got more challenging situations. But again, we did 33 captures in a very small unit of time on this last session. And that's again, just in the short term picture, the longer term, beyond a linear progression. If I'm doing, I'm mapping it correctly in my brain. That's fantastic. My brain's going, okay, you all were on an Astrobee. Is that that's the platform moving forward for now? Or is there another platform that maybe you all are going to be working with? Or? Yeah. So on the ISS, again, with all those safety things I've mentioned, I think it does in times. It was something that we saw a utilization path of speed and ease of using something that already has permission to fly around the ISS, already has batteries, already has comms, already has electromagnetic interference. It is as plug and plays you could hope for in one of the biggest experiments humanity has ever done. So on the ISS, it is a no brainer for us to use what's there. And that's sped up our timelines aggressively. As we move forward, all the wonderful lessons we've learned about Astrobee are pretty much for nothing. Because we are going into a free flyer outside the ISS for actual asset management. And so it's something that we're sharing a lot of these lessons in academia and at conferences and actually one of my co-founders is on the board to help the next group. I don't even want to say generation, the next group, the next few months and years that are going to work with Astrobee to share our lessons with them. But the Astrobee is a provided platform we're partnering currently. And then we've already contracted with suppliers for our free flyer that will go out in space and capture true space assets. So on one hand, it's completely different. You've got larger tanks, you've got different test parameters. On the other, it's almost similar of we are bringing our reach payload in the special softwares that all go behind to make it all work and plugging into a space tested, very vigorous program. Just rather than being run by the lovely people at MIT and at NASA Ames, it's now being done by a much larger organization and has a little bit more thrust than the computer fans that the Astrobee uses. Keep doing it. It's just amazing to see. And I'm just really, I'm honored frankly that you all take the time to speak to me about it now. And then it's just so wonderful to see what you're doing. So congrats again and thanks for so much for joining me today. I love talking about our successes and being able to share with your audience a team minus. It's been great to be able to talk with them over, I don't know if it's years now, but we're getting close to that if not past already. Getting close to it, yeah. Yeah. So it's something that I'll be happy to continue to update with all the hard work my team is doing. I really just am a smiley face who answers a few silly questions every so often. But I mean, the wonderful team in Marquette, Michigan, the team across the country working hard in so many ways, physical, software, bureaucracy. It is really a huge team effort from our team and our supporters who, you know, they may not wear the KMI name tag every day, but we've got champions fighting for us. And that's how we've gone so far. So the whole industry has really been supportive. And so we're excited to do what we can to extend that hand forward for those that might follow after us and just continue pushing the boundaries to what humanity can do. We'll be right back. Welcome back. We work on space problems to solve earth problems. And more and more, it's clear that we need to solve earth problems to keep going on to space. A new peer reviewed study in nature sustainability by researchers at MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the University of Birmingham took a look at how atmospheric changes due to greenhouse gas emissions may intersect with the ballooning number of satellites in low earth orbit. Using projected CO2 emissions between the years 2000 and 2100, the report says we could see a potential 50 to 66% reduction in the atmosphere's carrying capacity between 200 and 1000 kilometers in orbit. Now, 200 to 1000 kilometers in orbit is the lower half of what's usually defined as low earth orbit altitudes. And that is where you'll find both space stations Hubble, SpaceX, Starlink satellites. Yeah, it's a popular altitude range, an orbital sweet spot, if you will. And add to that that we know less about how our atmosphere works than we really would like, but we're learning more and more all the time. Like that different layers of the upper atmosphere behave differently, especially when interacting with greenhouse gases. Once you get past the homopause, the point at which the atmosphere is well mixed, that is when thermodynamics, gravity, density, molecular diffusion all lead to a bit of a layer cake in the atmosphere, where each different layer behaves differently and changes in one can affect neighboring layers in different ways. So one layer absorbing more greenhouse gases, the report says, will actually cause upper atmospheric layers to have decreased density, which will reduce atmospheric drag. And maybe that sounds great for propellant use, but it's not so great for getting rid of space debris. In fact, in this situation, space debris will stick around a lot, a lot longer. Kessler effect anyone? Lead author William Parker at MIT AeroAstro says, "The upper atmosphere is in a fragile state as climate change disrupts the status quo. At the same time, there's been a massive increase in the number of satellites launched, especially for delivering broadband internet from space. If we don't manage this activity carefully and work to reduce our emissions, space could become too crowded, leading to more collisions and debris." And he went on to add that, "We rely on the atmosphere to clean up our debris. If the atmosphere is changing, then the debris environment will change too. We show the long-term outlook on orbital debris is critically important on curbing our greenhouse gas emissions." And we've got a link to the study for you in our show notes if you'd like to take a look for yourself. That's it for T-Minus for March 11, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, look at 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. 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'm your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We will see you tomorrow. T-Minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]
