Today is April 2nd, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. T-minus. Twenty seconds to alloy. T-minus. Twenty seconds to alloy. T-minus. Open aboard. Five. CZM Astro selected to deliver payloads and ground systems for Taiwan's first national communications constellation. China launches an experimental spacecraft for satellite internet technology. AFWARX chooses Slingshot Aerospace to support its Raptor program. Cytus Space is partnering with Lone Star Data Holdings to develop Lunar Data Storage spacecraft. The EU has selected Teluselina Space to extend the service life of the EGNOS satellite. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Let's dive into today's Intel Briefing, shall we? We're kicking off with a roundup of contracts and business news from around the world and into space, starting with the news that the European Union has selected Teluselina Space to support an extension of life mission. Teluselina has signed a new contract worth 51 million euros with the European Union Agency for the Space Program to extend the operational life of the European satellite-based augmentation system, also known as EGNOS. EGNOS is one of the European Union's flagship space programs designed to improve the performance of global navigation satellite systems, such as GPS and, in the future, Galileo. It enhances the accuracy, reliability, and integrity of satellite positioning signals, ensuring more precise and dependable navigation data for a wide range of industries. The EU says EGNOS' safety of life service is essential for aviation, enabling precision approaches to airports without requiring traditional ground-based guidance systems. EGNOS was first deployed in 2005 and has been providing operational open service since 2009. The current EGNOS system was developed by Teluselina Space as prime contractor and is managed by the European Union Agency for the Space Program. The new contract, named LIFX-1, which stands for Life Extension Phase 1, will ensure that EGNOS Version 2 continues to provide reliable, secure, and high-performance services for Europe's aviation, maritime, land transport, mapping, and agricultural sectors beyond 2028. CIDUS Space has decided to move forward with and broaden the scope of a preliminary agreement valued at approximately $120 million with Lone Star data holdings. The agreement defines the collaboration between CIDUS and Lone Star to design, build, and provide on-orbit support for six lunar data storage spacecraft. CIDUS Space says the vehicles will advance secure, resilient data solutions beyond Earth. The lunar spacecraft will be based on CIDUS' LizzySat platform, and as part of the contract, CIDUS will oversee the design, payload integration, launch planning, and on-orbit support for the spacecraft. Slingshot Aerospace has been selected by AFWARKS to support its rapid analysis of photometric tracks for space object identification and behavior recognition program, also known more briefly as RAPTOR. For the RAPTOR contract, Slingshot will use machine learning to track, analyze, and report on behaviors of objects in low-Earth orbit. RAPTOR will be used to track and maintain custody of space objects of interest to the US Space Command, enabling timely reports on events that could indicate an imminent satellite maneuver or mission change. Slingshot currently maintains a catalog of approximately 14,500 active spacecraft and debris with its globally deployed network of optical sensors, which generate more than four and a half million photometric observations each night. The company says this photometric fingerprinting provides defense and intelligence agencies with a new set of tools to unlock applications. The contract is a Sibirphase II worth at least $1.2 million. China has launched an experimental spacecraft for satellite internet technology. The spacecraft lifted off on Tuesday from the Juchuan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest. Chinese media shared that the test satellite will be primarily used to conduct technical verification and experiments, including mobile-to-satellite broadband connections and the integration of space ground networks. Texas-headquartered CZM Astero has entered into a contract with the Taiwan Space Agency to deliver software-defined radio space communications payloads and ground user terminals for Taiwan's first communications satellite constellation. The Beyond 5G Leo satellite program, also known as B5G, will receive both space and ground-based active-phase-deray systems from CZM Astero. The B5G program is led by the Taiwan Space Agency and forms part of Taiwan's National Space Technology Long-Term Development Plan, which prioritizes domestic resilience and global competitiveness in emerging technologies, which includes space-based communications. [Music] And that's it for today's Intel Briefing Top 5. Stay with us for an update from the Sphere X Space Telescope, but before that point, N2K senior producer Alice Grooth has a few extra stories for you to be aware of. Alice? Thanks, Maria. We have included links to four additional stories today in the selected reading section of our show notes. The first is an incredible article from Eric Berger on Starliner's rendezvous with the space station. Then we have an update on a European project to search for signs for life on Mars. Avanti communications have completed their move to new headquarters at Spaceport Cornwall in the UK, and finally a new roll-up date from Redwire. Congratulations to Mike Gold, who is now their president of civil and international space business. Yes, indeed. Congratulations to Mike. He was an awesome guest earlier this year, and also a quick reminder that links to all the things that Alice mentioned can also be found on our website, space.n2k.com. Just click on today's episode title. Hey, T-Minus Crew, if you find this podcast useful, please do us a favor and share a five-star rating and short review in your favorite podcast app. That will help other space professionals like you to find the show and join the T-Minus Crew. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. We'll be right back. Welcome back. NASA's Sphere X Observatory, where Sphere X is short for Spectrophotometer for the History of the Universe epoch of re-ionization and ISIS Explorer, launched not that long ago on March 11. And by the 27th of March, the observatory was already opening its eyes to the universe. And today we're seeing from NASA the first uncalibrated images from Sphere X's very wide view of the skies. Three images of large swathes of the sky taken twice in two different wavelengths to compare and contrast show on average about 100,000 light sources each. So far, everything's looking good, according to the Sphere X teams. And in the next few weeks, calibration will continue. And by late April, the observatory should be ready to officially begin its science operations, where it will be taking about 600 images a day. Go Sphere X. And if you're looking to help the NASA Open Science Data Repository find out how life might thrive in deep space and who isn't really. There is a way that you can volunteer to join a Sydenyzen Science Analysis Working Group or AWG to help advance our understanding. By the way, there are currently nine AWGs with specific focus areas, but all of their efforts are in aid of the life and deep space question. And the NASA press release about these AWGs makes a point to note that these groups are truly open to all interested contributors. We'll put a link in our show notes for you. But if you want to learn more about how you can pitch in, there will be a virtual event on April 17th at 3pm Eastern, led by the NASA Citizen Science Leaders series about these analysis working groups and what they do. So do it for NASA. Do it for science. That's it for T-Minus for April 2nd, 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 Tre Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our Executive Producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We will see you tomorrow. [Music] Team, I'm in. [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
