[MUSIC] Today is March 25th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] >> T-minus. >> 20 seconds to L-O-I, Peter. >> Open aboard. [MUSIC] >> Live. >> The European Space Agency has signed new contracts with Aviasat, Planet Labs, and a Spatio-led consortium. >> Four. >> ESA has released a request for information for the European Launcher Challenge. >> Three. >> NASA has awarded Redwire a contract to launch four additional pharmaceutical drug investigations to the ISS. >> Two. >> Intuitive Machines releases their fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results. >> One. >> SpaceX launches the second NRO mission in three days. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Our guest today is Mark Sassen, co-founder of Pinpoint Search Group. Mark and I will be discussing the parallels between the Cybersecurity and Space Workforce Recruitment Pitfalls. It's a great chat for anyone looking to find work or those currently in the market to hire, so dig around after today's intelligence briefing for that chat. [MUSIC] >> And we're starting today's briefing with a quick turnaround of NRO missions by SpaceX. After launching the eighth proliferated architecture mission, NROL 57, for the National Reconnaissance Office on March 21st, SpaceX launched the NROL 69 mission yesterday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The mission, in partnership with US Space Force Space Systems Command, is the first NRO mission launched with SpaceX from the NSSL Phase II contract, which was awarded in August 2020 and worth $3.3 billion. A SpaceX Falcon 9 reusable rocket booster returned safely to landing zone one after delivering the National Security undisclosed payload to orbit. Yesterday's mission is the fifth mission of 2025 out of roughly a dozen planned for the year. Intuitive machines have released their fourth quarter and full-year 2024 financial results. The company reported $54.7 million in revenue in Q4, which is up 79% year over year. The company also reported $228 million for the total for 2024, which is nearly three times the revenue they made in 2023. In addition to their commercial lunar lander contracts, the company was awarded additional contracts for NASA's Near Space Network for direct-to-Earth services to regions around the Moon and beyond the Moon in Q4 of last year. Intuitive machines recently landed on the Moon for a second time, but the mission was concluded early due to the orientation of the vehicle after touchdown. Their stock took a small tumble following that mission. They have adjusted their full-year 2025 revenue outlook to $250 to $300 million. NASA has awarded Redwire, a contract to launch four additional pharmaceutical drug investigations to the International Space Station. The NASA-funded investigations aimed to manufacture high-value seed crystals, which could inform pharmaceutical manufacturing operations aboard the space station and future commercial space stations in low-Earth orbit. Redwire has flown and processed 28 units to date. The results of those investigations indicate that growing crystals in space could yield a more uniform product with fewer imperfections, which can improve the drug discovery and development process. The European Space Agency has released a request for information for the European Launcher Challenge. Intuitive was the result of the ESA Council deciding to prepare the future of European space transportation by promoting a greater choice for European access to space and to increase competitiveness of European launch services. ESA member states will decide on the exact parameters of the challenge and fund it at the ESA Ministerial Council in 2025. The RFI is open until late June of this year, and more details can be found by following the link in our show notes. And speaking of the European Space Agency, we have a roundup of three new contracts that ESA has signed this week. ViASAT has been selected to lead the Lunar Orbiting Satellite Communications portion of ESA's Moonlight Program alongside Telespazio and a host of other European and UK companies. The UK Space Agency, who are one of the major contributors to ESA's Moonlight Program, selected ViASAT to lead the UK ecosystem to deliver the communications capability. The Moonlight Services will be deployed in phases, targeting initial capability at the end of 2028, with full operations aimed by 2030. Planet Labs have signed a new contract with ESA on behalf of the Hellenic Ministry of Digital Governance to support the Greek National Smallsat Program, funded by the Recovery and Resilience Fund, Greece 2.0. Not bad for Greek Independence Day. Using Planet's commercial satellite data, Greece aims to inform and complement the development of their national satellite technology. And a consortium led by Portuguese startup Spatio has won a European Space Agency contract to test an inflatable drag sale designed to de-orbit small satellites. The Spatio-led consortium won a 3 million Euro ESA contract to test the company's inflatable satellite de-orbit system by 2028. [Music] And that is it for today's Intelligence Briefing. And 2K Senior Producer, Alice Karous, Alice, what do you have for today that didn't make today's top five? Maria, we have an update from Doge on NASA's progress on cuts to its budget, some stories out of China on their latest spacewalk and a discovery from Chong Yi's mission to date the moon's oldest crater, and NASA has selected Spirits' PNT Simulation Solution to support their lunar navigation program. Those stories can be found in the selected reading section of our show notes from whatever platform you listen to us on, and where else, Alice? On our website, Maria, space.intuk.com, just click on this episode title and scroll down to the selected reading section on the page. Thank you, Alice, for that update. Hey, T-Minus Crew, if you are just joining us, 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. 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. If you find T-Minus useful, please share so other professionals like you can find the show. Thank you so much, everybody. It means a lot to me and all of us here at T-Minus. Our guest today is Mark Sassen, co-founder of Pinpoint Search Group, and I started off by asking Mark about the work that he does in recruitment. I am a recruiter in the cybersecurity market, a managing partner at Pinpoint Search Group. I started in cybersecurity in the 2014 timeframe when I saw previously data storage, data center infrastructure where we were working, it was consolidating, was going to be less opportunity, saw potential explosion for cybersecurity, what I thought was going to be an explosion anyway, and I said, let's start a practice. So we did that at my previous employer. We did quite well, acquired that practice and turned it into Pinpoint Search Group in 2018. That's fantastic. And for our listeners on T-Minus, we're wondering, why am I talking to a person who works in cybersecurity for a space show? I promise you there's a very good reason because Mark has a really interesting story to tell about that. So I don't want to give too much away because I'd love for you to tell us a bit more about it, Mark, but there is a strong tie between cybersecurity and space and an argument that you're making. I'd love to hear more about that. Absolutely. So just as I referenced, you see opportunities presented in front of you, and it's all about whether you're going to take action to exploit that opportunity for your benefit. And so I read an article in September of 2023 regarding the just absolute growth, explosion of growth in the satellite sphere, right? In terms of 50% of satellites being launched in the past three years at the time, I saw Morgan Stanley's predictions on what the industry was going to be worth. And I said, I got to look into this a little more. I'm wondering how many companies are competing in this space. Maybe in a few years, we'll expand our business into the space sector as well because I did see some of that parallel from how cybersecurity evolved and evolved quickly based on need. And when I looked into the amount of space companies that existed at that moment in time, I knew it was time to go already. So we spent 2024 researching the industry, separating companies into different segments, really learning about it, and made it official in early 2025, entering the space, just got back from SACCHO. Couldn't be more thrilled about the investment we're making into this section of the market. Yeah, I would love to hear more about those parallels like opportunities, differences, that kind of thing. Because I live in that world of thinking about how cybersecurity is extremely different from space, but there are some really interesting similarities too. And you've been in that world and you've been really immersed in that. So I would love to get your thoughts on maybe we'll start with what are the similarities that you've seen in the challenges in both industries. Yeah, well, I think what's really important to consider up front from a first principle standpoint, if you will, is what's driving the growth of the industry. With cybersecurity, technology was advancing, cyberspace became a significant sphere of influence and competition to dominate cybersecurity. That created a necessity to secure it from adversarial attacks. And so that applied to both national security and business security. And so anytime there's a demand like that, you're going to have investors and talented founders take advantage of that opportunity. And that is exactly what we're seeing in terms of space. Great power competition is driving some of that. Technology is enabling better access. And so nation states are going to compete for dominance. They're involving the private sectors in their respective countries. And those private sectors, the way I see it, are seeing a military aspect to it right now. But they are also looking forward to what business solutions are available there. And so there's going to be so much investment. And that's what's really drawn me to this industry is seeing those similarities in growth. And so obviously when you're at a show like Sat Show and you have an opportunity to talk to investors and understand, OK, what are you looking at? Are your portfolio companies growing? And they're like, yeah, they're going like crazy. Identifying talent is difficult. Competing for the talent, bringing them into those locations where on-site talents can exist. That is an absolute issue that needs to be addressed. And I think you could probably learn some lessons from cybersecurity. Not everything's going to be the same, but you take practical methodologies and concepts and you apply it to this new industry. Yeah, I would love to hear more about that because that is truly the workforce shortage in space is the conversation. No matter what conversation I'm having with someone about completely something else, that comes up inevitably. So what can space learn from how cybersecurity has been working through that challenge? I think just recruiting from adjacent industries, adjacent talent pools is going to really be critical to helping solve that short-term talent crunch. Eventually, you're going to start seeing some internal growth. This is going to be homegrown just like we're seeing with cybersecurity. It's not as big of a topic as it was maybe five years ago because we have a lot of different companies, a lot of different people that have been moving around creating its own self-sustaining industry. But when you talk about space, what's so different is the type of talent you need. And that's really exciting in the sense that you'll need thermal engineers and you'll need blue-collar welders to come in and add value to these organizations. And so finding those people in and of themselves might not be the most difficult thing. The difficult thing is identifying the people with the right mindset. So welders, they might be really good at what they do, but are they ready to jump into a scenario where everything that they put together from a metal standpoint is going to be absolutely critical? There's just going to be a different mindset that you need to secure in identifying those people. And shameless plug, that's where recruitment is going to be critical here is having those more in-depth conversations as the interview processes progress, really understanding are these professionals that we're reaching out to from these adjacent industries, are they ready to join into what's going to be a very challenging situation going into a startup space company or an established company that has high demand? Yeah, that sounds almost like a cultural challenge. And I mean, every industry has their own. And space has been sort of a tough nut to crack on that one. Not saying that space's culture has to change, but it has a very distinctive set of challenges there. I'm curious as you were learning about it, what your sort of read on the space culture is for bringing new people in? Well, I think that the read on the culture is going to be based on the type of organization that you're running. So bringing people from large systems integrators like a company like the Space Industry, for example, that have been working in the large systems integrator community for a long time, that might not be the same cultural fit that a startup that's going to have to be extremely savvy, work with limited resources in the space industry is going to require. And so you might have the skills on paper to accomplish the goals of a particular set of space companies, but operating in these different environments can be extremely challenging. Going back to cybersecurity where people say, I want to do a startup. It's like, well, you've been at IBM or Cisco for 25 years and no offense to those who have made great careers at those companies. But they go in, they try it. And a lot of times I have conversations saying, yeah, I need to go into a little bit of a bigger environment. And so being able to identify the people with the right metal for a particular company and a particular stage of its lifecycle is going to be really important. That's a very fair point. I'm curious if there is a profile for success that you anticipate for people joining or laterally moving or moving up within the space industry. This is what you really need to succeed. It's going to seem a little cliche, but I'll say it. It's great. Being able to deal with more failure than success. The successes will be bigger. They'll make up for all that failure. But understanding that things aren't going to go as planned. And I think that applies even more, substantially more to space than it does to cybersecurity. And cybersecurity is an extremely challenging field, but space is all on a whole other level. Wanting to learn, willingness to learn, willingness to be adaptable, willingness to, again, another cliche, wear many hats, do what it takes to make it happen. As opposed to a nine to five job where you submit your forms, you do some work every day and then you go home because there's going to be redundancy and an institution backing you up. So that startup mentality, that startup culture associated with grit, from what I saw at Satcho with all the smaller companies looking to evolve, that's what I see a challenge going to be. That's a great point. And I guess to flip the question around for employers who are looking at the talent pool, especially given the challenges that we've talked about, who maybe need to change their tactics and strategy a little bit, what are you telling them? Yeah, what I would tell them is don't just focus on the resume component of recruitment. You can get applicants, you can get resumes, but a large part of recruiting, especially in a small organization, requires a good liaison, whether that's an internal liaison or an external recruiter like us, to have somewhat of a broker relationship between the employers and the candidates that they're interviewing. What I mean by that is that you can qualify somebody up front from a resume standpoint, qualify that they should be considered for some interviews, but if you're not thinking about continuously qualifying after interview one and two and three, hey, what's changed in your perspective on this opportunity? What's exciting to you? What questions do you have? That's a great way to validate continuously that these are going to be good candidates for your particular company and environment. And that's lost a lot of times. It's pretty critical, especially for the earlier stage companies, that when they make a hire that it's right, because going back and doing it again is going to be a huge waste of time and resources. Oh, they're right back. Welcome back. Nothing we love so much here on T-minus, say primarily audio only podcast, then telling you about gorgeous images that I then get to describe to you. But roll with me here. I'll be my best for you today, not with one, but two images that are worth taking a look at when you have a moment to peruse our show notes, space.intuk.com. The first image is a rather spectacular specimen of a Space X Falcon 9 fuel spiral seen last night in the skies over the UK and continental Europe. When the second stage of a Falcon 9 dumps its remaining fuel high up in the atmosphere, that fuel freezes in a spiral pattern high up in the sky. It is quite a sight. And this phenomenon is well loved by launch photographers, but not as well known by the public just yet. So when the spiral appears, it understandably causes quite a commotion that, you know, perhaps we're having some other worldly visitors making an entrance. But no, it's just a satellite's right to orbit making its exit. And last night's fuel spiral from Space X's NRL-69 mission launch, seen over the UK and Europe, was a particularly photogenic specimen of the phenomenon. So it is worth taking a look. The second image I'm encouraging you to look at when you've got a chance comes from much farther away. About 630 light years or so, in fact, courtesy of Web's NERCAM and MIRI instruments. This one's a cosmic tornado. In other words, a protosteller outflow from a nearby star that's forming. And it's called a Herbig-Hero object, and this one's Herbig-Hero 4950. And from Web's viewpoint, it juxtaposes a much more distant spiral galaxy right at the tippity-top of the tornado. It's a happy accident, if you will, but it makes for a truly spectacular image. So if you're looking for a new desktop or phone background image space nerds, this is a great candidate. [MUSIC PLAYING] That's it for T-Minus from March 25th, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out 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 Iben. Peter Kilpie is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] T-Minus. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
