Spectrum’s spectacular 30 seconds.

Today is March 31st, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. The launch window for the SpaceX Fram 2 mission opens at 9.46 pm Eastern time this evening. SES and Spectral to collaborate on global quantum secure communications. NASA and Boeing say they are making progress towards proof certification of the CST-100 Starliner system. NASA has amended its launch services contract with SpaceX to add Starship. The ISAR Aerospace's inaugural Spectrum launch ends in a crash. And you will find an additional show on your newsfeed today everybody. AWS in orbit, scaling space, safety and agility with AstroScale UK is also dropping at the same time as our daily show. So go and check it out after we wrap up today's intelligence briefing. Happy Monday everybody! ISAR Aerospace finally got their launch day for the inaugural flight of the Spectrum rocket after a series of weather delays. The European commercial rocket Spectrum, developed and operated by Germany's ISAR Aerospace, lifted off from Andoja's spaceport in Norway on Sunday. Now this is where headlines were, split. Was it a success or a mission failure? The spacecraft launched and flew for just 30 seconds clearing the launch pad, but it ultimately ended in a fireball crashing into the sea. ESA says that the launch proved that the vehicle can achieve one of the hardest parts of space transportation, lift off, and therefore is calling the mission a success. That said, it is the second orbital launch attempt from Europe that has ended without meeting the mission objectives, the first being Virgin Orbit's horizontal launch from just a few years ago. Of course no flight is ever a complete failure. ISAR Aerospace engineers collected data from the 32nd flight to analyze and tweak their Spectrum launcher for a next flight. ESA's Director General, Josef Aschbacher, was quick to point out that quote, "A test flight is exactly that. A test to gather data, learn, and improve. Everything ISAR Aerospace achieved is remarkable and they will have lots of data to analyze. I applaud the teams for getting this far and I am confident that we will see the next Spectrum on the launch pad. Ready for test flight two, lift off soon." We say here, here, and applaud Europe for their first orbital vertical launch attempt and look forward to seeing more in the coming year. NASA has awarded SpaceX a modification under the NASA Launch Services 2 contract to add Starship to their existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch service offerings. The NLS-2 contracts are multiple award indefinite delivery and definite quantity with an ordering period through June 2030 and an overall period of performance through December 2032. Now SpaceX has suffered multiple setbacks with the Starship in recent flights and this on-ramping of Starship just adds the spacecraft as an option until the contract expires. SpaceX is under pressure to get Starship operational by next year as the company plans to send an uncrewed Starship to Mars by late 2026 and the NASA Artemis 3 moon landing is fast approaching. It's been a while since we had an official update from Boeing and NASA about the Star liner capsule, so we were excited to see an announcement on NASA's blog over the weekend about it. NASA and Boeing say they're making progress towards crew certification of the CST-100 Starliner system. Teams are working to resolve Starliners in-flight anomalies and preparing for propulsion system testing in the months ahead as NASA plans for Starliner's next flight. Ken Bauer-Sawkes, the associate administrator for space operations at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, says that NASA's strategy for crew transportation is critical for assured access to space using American private industry. Our investment in commercial crew transportation capabilities is providing the needed flexibility to operate in space as safely as possible and respond to changes quickly when they arise. NASA is seeing the commitment from Boeing to adding the Starliner system to the nation's crew transportation base. Now NASA and Boeing have been working on post-flight data analysis from its crewed flight test in summer 2024. They say that a significant amount of work has been completed, with more than 70% of flight observations and in-flight anomalies being closed at program level control boards. The major in-flight propulsion system anomalies that Starliner experienced in orbit are expected to remain open further into 2025, pending the outcome of various ground test campaigns and potential system upgrades. SES and Spectral have signed an agreement to develop an interoperable optical ground station to establish long-distance satellite-based quantum key distribution between Asia and Europe. The companies are aiming to connect both companies' current and future quantum key distribution or QKD satellite missions. The hope is that this will result in easier access to and diversity in the supply of long-distance QKD to end-users in Asia, Europe, and other future compatible ground stations worldwide. The integration of this proposed optical ground station with Singapore's Fiber QKD network aims to help future customers integrate their networks with satellite QKD networks and demonstrate a practical pathway towards enabling global QKD connectivity once the QKD satellites are operational. SpaceX and the Fram2 crew, that they have dubbed "Framanauts," completed a full rehearsal of launch activities yesterday ahead of tonight's scheduled lift-off. The launch window for lift-off of the Fram2 mission opens at 9.46 pm Eastern time this evening. The mission is aiming to explore Earth from a polar orbit and fly over Earth's polar regions for the first time. The crew will conduct 22 research studies and are planning to take the first X-ray in space, perform exercise studies to maintain muscle and skeletal mass, and, you know, grow mushrooms and microgravity. This will be the first human spaceflight for mission commander Chun Wong, vehicle commander Yannick Mickelsen, vehicle pilot Rebeya Raghi, and mission specialist and medical officer Eric Phillips. Speed and add Astra to the crew and support team. And that wraps up our top five for you today. We have more on what's going on on the ISS coming up, and don't forget to check out our latest AWS in orbit episode with AstroScale UK dropping in your podcast feed today. We will be with AWS at booth 1036 next week, by the way, at the 40th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. And we're going to be recording AWS in orbit at that booth on Tuesday at 9 am and Wednesday at 11, so come on by if you're there and meet the team. Speaking of, our N2K senior producer Alice Cruz will be there with me, of course, and she has more on stories that didn't make today's top five. Alice? Yes, I'm excited that we're going to be back at the symposium again this year. We've got a lot of great guests for the AWS in orbit specials, so do this and out for those. The only additional story we've added to today's selected reading section is on K-Hand Space losing their protest to the award of a contract to slingshot aerospace. This was for a presentation layer for the traffic coordination system for space better known as TRAX. And as always, please remind us where we can read more on that story. Thanks to that story and all the others we mentioned throughout the show can be found in the selected reading section of our show notes on the podcast platform that you listen to us through and on our website, space.intuk.com. Hey T-Minus 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. If you're more interested in the lighter side of what we do here, we are @t-daily on Instagram. That is where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions and even some behind the scenes treats. We know we're going to be very busy at Space Symposium, so now's the time to follow. Links are in the show notes. Hope you'll join us there. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] We'll be right back. [Music] [Music] [Music] Welcome back. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. One in five deaths in this country is due to this disease. One of the many reasons heart disease is so hard to treat is because the damaged heart tissue can't regenerate. So if you have end stage heart failure, a heart transplant is really your only option and that is a precarious place to be. So please take care of your ticker, okay? Now some hope for future cardiac patients is coming from cardiac cell research aboard what else but the International Space Station. The premise of this new research is this. Previous studies have shown that cancer cells thrive in microgravity. So Professor Chunhui Xu, a researcher at Emory University, wondered if heart cells might respond to space conditions like cancer cells do by proliferating faster and surviving better. In that case, space-based research could accelerate regenerative treatments for heart disease. So Professor Xu's team launched two investigations to the ISS studying how microgravity affects heart muscle cells and they found that space-grown heart cells do indeed proliferate more efficiently and survive better and are purer and more mature than those grown in normal gravity, all attributes that are critical for heart repair therapies. Their peer-reviewed research, published in Biomaterials Journal, could lead to new ways to generate and transplant heart cells for patients with heart failure. Professor Xu said, "Our research on the ISS could allow us to develop a new strategy to generate cardiac cells more efficiently with improved survival when transplanted into damaged heart tissue, which would greatly benefit patients on Earth." So there you go. Space research is emerging as an unexpected ally in regenerative medicine. Future experiments aim to refine these findings, bringing space-driven innovations closer to real-world treatments. [Music] And that's it for T-Minus for March 31st, 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. Please 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. We make you smarter about your teams while making your teams smarter. Learn how at N2K.com. N2K 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 PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]