[MUSIC] >> Today is April 3rd, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. >> T-minus. >> 20 seconds to L-O-S team. >> Go for the floor. [MUSIC] >> 5. >> ISS National Lab launches an accelerator program to integrate startups and investment partners in space. >> 4. >> PLD space and the orbit have signed a launch agreement to deploy satellites aboard Miura 5 to equatorial orbit. >> 3. >> I-Space US has formed a US Lunar Science Advisory Board chaired by Dr. Alan Stern. >> 2. >> Portal space systems raises $17.5 million in a seed round. >> 1. >> Spin launch receives investment from Kongsburg and contracts, NanoAvionics for a satellite constellation. >> 3. [MUSIC] >> And our guest today is friend of the show, Stephen Jordan Tomaszewski, AIA vice president of space systems. And Steve and I will be discussing AIA's strategic priorities for 2025. So stick around to find out more later in the show. [MUSIC] >> Happy Thursday, everybody. We are in the final few days stretch before heading off to space symposium number 40 in Colorado Springs next week. So let's dive into today's Intel briefing, shall we? And it's been a little while since we've heard from kinetic launch company SpinLaunch, and boy have they returned with big plans. The California-based company announced a $12 million investment from Kongsburg Defense and Aerospace in support of their newly announced Meridian Space Satellite Communications Constellation. In fact, SpinLaunch has contracted Kongsburg's NanoAvionics to exclusively supply satellites for the initial tranche of the Leo broadband constellation under a contract valued at 122.5 million euros. SpinLaunch says the constellation will provide global coverage with only one traditional rocket launch deploying 250 next-generation micro-satellites that leverage a proprietary suite of technologies. The partnership between SpinLaunch and NanoAvionics includes two prototypes, one of which is an in orbit demonstrator mission planned for 2026, as well as the development and serial production of 280 satellites. The Meridian Space Constellation plans to grow to at least 1,200 satellites. And to meet the 280 satellite constellation production schedule, NanoAvionics says it'll ramp up its manufacturing capabilities with the addition of a new assembly and testing facility at its European headquarters in Lithuania. We can't wait to see those satellites eat the space, and I have been told that "eat" isn't a word used by the youth anymore, but I'm not young, so I don't care. SpinLaunch has a suborbital system developed at Spaceport America in New Mexico, but it seems that their orbital launches will be happening from Alaska. The Elute Corporation, which is the Alaska Native Regional Corporation for the Elution and Pribilof Islands, have signed an exploratory lease agreement to develop a launch site on Edak Island. SpinLaunch says the agreement establishes the foundation for a long-term collaboration that capitalizes on Edak's unique geographic and logistical advantages, with plans to create a facility that will position Edak as a key player in the rapidly expanding global space industry. And we wish them all the best of luck. Portal space systems has closed an over-subscribed $17.5 million seed round. The Seattle-based satellite company plans to use the funding to accelerate the development of their transorbital spacecraft engineered for contested and congested space environments. The capital will support the first full-scale demonstration of the company's Supernova spacecraft. Supernova uses a solar thermal propulsion system that Portal says delivers the performance of nuclear thermal propulsion without requiring a fission reactor. As a result, Supernova achieves the long-range mobility necessary for dynamic space operations at a fraction of the cost, risk, and regulatory challenges of systems with comparable performance. The spacecraft is expected to undergo a critical design review in Q2 2025 with propulsion testum, system integration, and a launch expected for mid-2026. And if you want to learn more about Portal space systems, then definitely check out my chat with Portals co-founder and CEO, Jeff Thornberg, back from February 15th. It's a fantastic conversation. We'll include a link for you in our show notes. iSpaceUS has formed a US Lunar Science Advisory Board. And the initiative, which will be chaired by Dr. Alan Stern, has been launched in conjunction with the appointment of Elizabeth Christ as the new CEO of iSpaceUS. The board is aiming to advance iSpaceUS's competitiveness in the US market and elevate the company's scientific capability by leveraging the experience of distinguished leaders in the space industry. The board will work to provide insights and recommendations to iSpaceUS on matters related to scientific lunar exploration, technology development, strategic partnership, business strategy, and socioeconomic assessments. iSpaceUS has the board's guidance will be instrumental in advancing the company's mission to establish a sustainable CIS lunar economy and contribute to the broader goals of realizing iSpace's vision called Moon Valley 2040. Italy's Deorbit has signed a launch agreement with Spain's PLD space to deploy satellites aboard PLD's Miura 5 to equatorial orbit. Miura 5 will be launching from its site at the CSG in French Guiana. They say the spaceport provides one of the few dedicated low inclination launch opportunities available, offering customers direct access to equatorial orbits. PLD space is currently working on the serial production for Miura 5 units, using the flight proven technology coming from Miura 1, with the aim of starting its test flight campaign by the end of this year. Commercial flights of Miura 5 will begin in 2026, with the objective of scaling up to 30 launches per year by 2030. PLD space says it has now fulfilled more than 80% of the slots in its manifest until 2027. And the International Space Station National Laboratory has launched the Orbital Edge Accelerator Program. It's designed to integrate cutting-edge startups and investment partners into the rapidly expanding space economy. The program will select six startups to receive an investment of up to $500,000 each, along with mentorship and the opportunity to launch an ISS National Lab-sponsored investigation. The accelerator aims to unlock discoveries that can benefit humanity and drive new commercial opportunities in low-Earth orbit. Definitely follow the link in our show notes to find out more about how you can apply. That's it for today's Intel Briefing. And 2K Senior Producer Alice Carruth has more on the stories that didn't make today's top five. Alice? Thanks, Maria. It's increasingly hard to pick the top stories every day, so we always add a few extra that we believe you should be keeping an eye on. Today we have news of Carmen Space and Defence's new clean room for spacecraft assembly, an investment update from Turian Space, a new partnership between Droover Space and Japan's Infostella, and a write-up on the US Space Force's first war game for the commercial reserve. And please remind the T-minus crew where those stories can be found. As always, Maria, we add links to the original source materials for all the stories we mentioned throughout the show in the selected reading section of our show notes. Those links can also be found on our website, space.ntuk.com. Just click on this episode page. Hey T-minus crew, if your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership, or recruit talent, T-minus can help. We'd love to hear from you. Just send us an email at space@ntuk.com, or send us a note through our website so we can connect about building a program to meet your goals. [Music] Our guest today is Steven Jordan Tomaszewski, AIA vice president of Space Systems. And AIA have recently released their space priorities for 2025. And we've included a link to that list under the guest section of our show notes. Definitely go check it out. I'm Steve Jordan Tomaszewski, the vice president for Space Systems at the Aerospace Industries Association. And our trade association represents nearly 300 companies across the aerospace defense industry. That's everything from big companies that are making launch vehicles and satellites down to some of the smaller companies that are really enabling some innovation across the sector. We just finished updating our 2025 space priorities. So what we've done over the last several months is go out to all of our companies and just ask them what are the key things in the takeaways that we should be doing collectively, especially between government and industry, to really unlock and enable the space economy. We kind of broke it down into priorities that the government can do at large to work better with the space industry. And then we also kind of focused down to look at the major sectors in space, looking at national security space, civil space, and then kind of the commercial space sector as well. It's a really robust list and we'll make sure that we link it for our listeners and viewers because people really should take a look at it. And I know we're not going to be able to cover every single point, but people should definitely read through it because there's a lot there. Let's start with an executive summary version, which I hate asking because, again, it's like people should read the whole thing. But if we're going to take away some sort of top line trends or overall themes of this priority list, what can you tell me? First of all, I think this is very timely because we do have a new administration and a new Congress and everyone wants to know what does industry want to see happen and how can we advance collectively overall. So at a very high level, some of the things that companies are calling for right now is to really take a sharp look at the current regulatory environment for space. So if you're putting up satellites into space these days, depending on what type of satellite you're putting up, there's a number of different hoops that you have to jump through in order to preserve our safety, but then also to make sure that you're operating your satellites effectively and your launch vehicles effectively. So it's always a good opportunity to really kind of scrub those regulations and making sure that they're right sized to be able to continue to protect safety, but then also to not be too much of a burden on businesses. We also are asking for strengthening of the supply chain. There's a lot of technological trends that are happening across the space industry right now, such as proliferated low-earth orbit constellations and a lot of launch vehicles coming online. So with all of that, it's going to allow us to do more and more in space, but it's going to propose some unique challenges to really be able to scale up and meet the manufacturing capacity needs for these new types of constellations. And then also we're asking for investing in space infrastructure. So similar to if you think about airports and ports for in the maritime domain, we need to make sure that our infrastructure that enables all the great launch vehicles and satellites to go up into space, those need to be strategically invested in with a combination of government funds and then also taking advantage of private sector funds. Hmm, okay. So yeah, of the three that you mentioned, the one that I remember I was really latching onto was the supply chain. All three of those priorities he mentioned come up a lot in my conversations with people, but I'm fascinated by the supply chain one, especially when we're talking about strengthening supply chain. I mean, there are so many challenges there. What are the sort of takeaways on that specifically? Well, this year, our trade association, AIA, is going to be looking really deep into the space supply chain and the industrial base and trying to see where are those common bottlenecks or challenges kind of across the board. So where this really comes down to is I would characterize in the past when we've talked about supply chain for space, we've really had a major focus on ensuring that our systems and current infrastructure are secure from potential threats to the supply chain. So think like cyber attacks against it. And we really haven't had to worry too much about mass manufacturing or increasing capacity at different factories, but we are now starting to see that. We have thousands of satellites that are getting manufactured. We have new launch vehicles. So this really could be anything from some of the raw materials, some of the critical minerals, or perhaps even things like the gases that we use to fuel our satellites. But then also there's a lot of space unique components out there. So you can kind of think of things like satellite solar panels, satellite batteries, star trackers, reaction wheels. It's those types of things that aren't always talked about. But they're really what is at the heart of our modern space capabilities. And we need to scale up production for these. So I think there's a role for government there as well, because especially for things that have national security implications, we want to make sure that we have enough capacity to be able to meet all the demands of what we're going to be using space for in the future. >> Absolutely, and I guess a related question on space infrastructure. If you could drill into that one as well. Another hot area that again, it comes up all the time. I'd love to hear more on that. >> Yeah, so for infrastructure, just think about I think looking at launch vehicles is a very great example of this. It's not just having a factory where you can make a new launch vehicle. It's also being able to transport that to the launch complex at the end of the day. So when we're looking at making infrastructure investments, that could be anything for making sure that our waterways are big enough. If you're transporting launch vehicles, for example, on a river, that could also be making sure that our bridges are reinforced to be able to bring very heavy space objects over. And a lot of those investments can really enable industry to be successful at all. There's examples right now where, hey, if we make some investments in a particular bridge or a particular roadway or work with some local authorities to be able to transport things around better, it's going to allow companies to do that cheaper. Especially in the government being such a big part of the space industry, effectively passes on the savings to the government in those ways. And it allows just the more capacity, getting more things out to space, and allow all that to happen a lot faster. Excellent. All right. So I got it. And I'm rounding back to the beginning about the regulatory environment. This is a huge conversation as well. And certainly it's been ongoing for years. What are we looking for out of the new administration to maybe improve the regulatory process or the burden, so to speak? Yeah. So I think there's always opportunities for efficiencies and regulatory processes. Right. One of the things that we've been consistently advocating for at AIA over the last several years is to make sure we even have enough regulators with the right type of technical expertise in the first place to be able to meet the demands and all the new regulatory applications that are coming in. So if you think of things like the Federal Aviation Administration and their Office of Commercial Space Transportation that reviews and approves licenses for launch and reentry, so making sure that they're able to do their jobs with the right expertise to keep Americans safe at the end of the day, but enabling all the great innovation and being able to be the least burdensome possible for some of these new capabilities. Or if you look at areas like the Department of Commerce has the Office of Space Commerce and they have a regulatory agency that looks at remote sensing satellites. So think about taking pictures from space. So making sure that offices like that are properly staffed up to be able to preserve national security interests while at the same time providing that certainty for companies. And then you have new areas that really haven't been regulated yet. So one example of that is what some folks would call mission authorization or for novel space activities. So if you want to do things like refueling satellites in orbit or moving satellites out of the way, maybe to a more safe graveyard orbit, there's not a good regulatory process currently for that to happen. So there's opportunities like that as well. And I think that the big message from industry here is if there is more regulatory certainty of what to expect, what timelines to expect, that allows businesses to raise capital. That allows businesses to know what the steps forward with the government are going to be and allows them to really kind of push the boundaries of new areas. Fantastic. One area that it comes up all the time also, I mean, all of these priorities again, they make a lot of sense as I read through them. The space workforce, huge area of concern for everybody. I would love to get a bit more of your thoughts on how we can continue to grow and address that pipeline issue. One of the things we've taken a look at over the last several years at AIA is how the workforce can really enable these new technological breakthroughs coming to the space industry. And it's not just your really advanced rocket engineers at the end of the day. In order to mass manufacture satellites or launch vehicles, you also need a skilled technical workforce. So this is making sure that you have enough folks, you know, think of welders or machinists, folks that are actually putting, you know, satellites or launch vehicles together are a crucial part of all this. So it's going to be important, kind of similar to identifying certain supply chain bottleneck issues. It's not just having access to raw materials or components that eventually go into more complex systems. It's making sure that you actually have the folks trained up and able to make all that happen. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Our final story today is all about space food, and it involves one of my favorite condiments, miso. And now miso is a fermented soybean paste that is a staple of Japanese cuisine. It's well known as the base in the eponymous miso soup, but I love it as a glaze on fish or on roasted eggplant. It imparts a deep umami flavor to just anything you use it on. I love it. And now that you're hungry like I am, here's the space tie-in. Researchers at MIT and the Technical University of Denmark have found that miso fermented aboard the ISS developed nuttier, more roasted flavors than its earth-based counterparts, thanks largely in part to higher temperatures in orbit. Yes, the research team actually did a taste test. Isn't that awesome? The ISS miso contained more pyrazines, which are flavor compounds that are linked to roasted notes. And the ISS miso even showed some unique microbial changes, possibly influenced by the radiation. Now we're not sure yet if that affected the flavor, but it certainly warrants more investigation, don't you think? The study of how miso fermentation works in space was published in iScience just yesterday and suggests that fermentation can actually thrive in space. So add this to your trivia list, everybody. Miso is now officially the first food fermented in space. And with a successful miso fermentation, this could mean that astronauts can channel their inner millennial and ferment all the things and potentially expand their food options beyond pouch and stereotypical freeze-dried meals. Who knows, maybe one day we might hear about space pickles, yogurt, sourdough, kimchi. Mm, delicious. That's it for T-minus for April 3rd, 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 Eiben. Peter Kielpe is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T-minus. T-minus. T-minus. T-minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]
