The African Space Agency is open for business.

Today is April 21st, 2025. I'm Alice Carruth and this is T-minus. CreoTech instruments has signed a 52 million euro contract for Poland's Camilla constellation. The Bahamas has suspended all SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landings pending an environmental assessment. SpaceX launched the 32nd resupply mission to the International Space Station. The NRO, in partnership with the US Space Force Space Launch Delta 30 and SpaceX launched the NRL-145 mission from Vanderberg Space Force Base. The African Space Agency has officially opened its headquarters in Cairo. The NRL-145 mission has been launched in the last two years. The mission is to ensure that the NRL-145 mission is fully operational. The mission is to ensure that the NRL-145 mission is fully operational. Our guest today is Parker Wysiek, lead communicator and strategist for space and emerging technologies at the Aerospace Corporation. Parker will be hosting a new monthly segment on this show and we'll be speaking with our host Maria Var Marzis after today's headlines so stick around for that chat. [Music] Hello and happy Monday crew, let's dive into today's intelligence briefing. The African Space Agency held an official opening of its new headquarters in Cairo yesterday. Officials from the African Union, representatives from African governments and space agencies, ambassadors from African and foreign nations, members of the African Space Agency Council and high-level delegates from the global space community attended the inauguration ceremony in Egypt's capital. During the event, AFSA signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Space Agency to progress cooperation between the two continents. The partnership aims to strengthen Earth observation programs for climate monitoring and natural resource management, expand joint training initiatives for African space professionals and provide technical support for AFSA's institutional development. The ceremony was also used to unveil the new logo for the agency, designed by a Cameroonian artist who won the AFSA logo competition. A four-day new Space Africa conference is also kicked off today and will run until April 24 to further accelerate Africa's space ambitions. The National Reconnaissance Office in partnership with the US Space Force Space Launch Delta 30 and SpaceX launched the NRO-L-145 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base yesterday. The launch was the first mission under the Space Force's Phase 3-Lane-1 contract. The mission tagline "Strength in Numbers" describes the NRO's new strategy of a proliferated overhead architecture, numerous smaller satellites designed for capability and resilience. The mission expanded the NRO's constellation to 200 spacecraft. New scientific experiments and supplies are on their way to the International Space Station. SpaceX launched the 32nd resupply mission to the orbiting lab earlier this morning. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is due to dock with the space station tomorrow, Tuesday, with live coverage of the action starting at 6.45am Eastern. It's carrying approximately 6,700 pounds of much-needed cargo to the orbiting lab for NASA. The last resupply mission to the EISS was indefinitely delayed due to issues with the Cygnus spacecraft. The Bahamas government has suspended all SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landings in the country. The Bahamian Director of Communications shared on a post on social media that no further clearances will be granted until a full environmental assessment is reviewed. SpaceX made its first Falcon 9 landing in the Bahamas on February 18 during a Starlink satellite fleet launch. The first stage boosted a return to Earth to land on a SpaceX drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean stationed off the Bahamian coast. After that mission, the Bahamian government approved 19 more landings throughout 2025 subject to regulatory approval. At the time, SpaceX shared that the new landing collaboration with the Bahamas would enable Falcon 9 to launch to new orbital trajectories. It's unclear if the suspension stems from the re-entry of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8, which exploded and dropped debris over the Bahamas during the test launch on March 6. Creotech Instruments is developing Poland's National Constellation of Earth Observation satellites with support from the European Space Agency. Creotech has signed a 52 million euro contract with ESA with the potential for an increase to 85 million for the development of the Camilla Constellation. Camilla, which stands for Country Awareness Mission in Land Analysis, will consist of three satellites, potentially four, with a focus on Earth observation and security applications. Creotech will also develop the ground segment for satellite control and data processing. The company will execute the project in partnership with Polish space sector subcontractors. The Camilla Constellation was commissioned by Poland's Ministry of Development and Technology with ESA selected to manage the tender process. The constellation is expected to launch in 2027. That concludes today's briefing. You'll find links to further reading on all the stories mentioned throughout the show in the selected reading section of our show notes. Today we've included three additional stories for you to read up on. United Launch Alliance has shared on social media that the first project KIPA launched has been rescheduled for April 28. Chile has accused a Chinese space project in the country as being illegal, and the US and Italy held talks last week that included discussions on space cooperation. All those links can also be found on our website space.n2k.com. Just click on today's episode title. Hi T-miners crew, if you like daily updates from us directly in your feed, be sure to follow the official N2K T-miners page over on LinkedIn. And if you're more interested in the lighter side of what we do here, we are @tminersdaily on Instagram. That's where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions and even some behind the scenes treats. Links are in the show notes and we really do hope you'll join us there. [Music] We're excited to be partnering with the Aerospace Corporation on a new monthly segment for this show. Maria spoke to host Parker Wyschik about the organisation and what we can expect from the new edition. My name is Parker Wyschik. I am speaking to you from the booming space hub of Nashville, Tennessee, Tongue and Cheek. But I live here in Nashville. My wife is a speech therapist and she works at Vanderbilt University. So that's why I'm in Nashville. But I think that's a testament to our times that folks all over the world, all over the country and communities you might not think of as space adjacent or space involved, are in fact really driving some innovation and bringing this community forward and the economy forward. I have been interested in space. I was thinking, I knew you would ask me this. I was trying to think of my first real kind of stranglehold on space stuff. Yeah, your space nerd cred. We got to establish that, right? I think it really goes back probably till my younger days. But I viscerally remember in fourth and fifth grade being really, really honed in on space. And that was when my family and I moved to Montgomery, Alabama. So Alabama has a very rich space legacy. In fourth grade, we were playing with Kinects. I don't know if you remember those construction toys. Oh, yes. But we were building a model of the International Space Station. And so this was 1996 or so. I forget when the ISS actually deployed to space and was assembled. But this was front and center for fourth grade audiences back then. And I was just fascinated by it. And I was fascinated with the shapes we were making and the fact that we could put things like that up into space. And how we could keep astronauts safe. And that led me to kind of look back through history and see all of the things we had already done with the Apollo program, Jiminy, Mercury. One of my favorite movies is the right stuff because it goes through all those early days. And I think there's a lot of parallels to that right now. We are in the early days of something that down the line when my kids are older will look very modern and contemporary and fully formed. Right now we're molding that clay. So that's a little bit about me. I love it. Well, it's a great intro, Parker. And it's always a joy to speak with you. You've been on the show a bunch. I've worked with you a bunch. You're just awesome. In the background. You've had aerospace corporation guests numerous times. We're very grateful of the continuing partnership. This is my first time, long time listener, first time caller. Let's call it. Yes, people get to see sort of who's been making the magic happen. And that would be you. So likewise, we have been so grateful. I have been so grateful to be working with you. And again, that you all are going to be doing this amazing segment on our show. I'm thrilled. So let's I think what I think we should do is maybe give an introduction to what the aerospace corporation is and does because I feel like the many times we had aerospace corporation guests on the show we've learned or I've learned, I should say, just speaking for me on this one a lot about the different functions people have. But maybe just give a sense of, you know, the big picture of, you know, the aerospace corporation occupies a very unique place in, I would say, the ecosystem. Like it's a very unique thing. So I would I think let's just give a sense of like what y'all do. I love that you use the word ecosystem because there will be a call back to that later. Thank you for including the V in the aerospace corporation. That is our formal name. We are 60 plus years old. Most folks know us for our legacy supporting national security space and missile programs. What we are is we're a national nonprofit that operates a federally funded research and development center or FFRDC, the dedicated FFRDC for space. We're working across the space enterprise, across all sectors of the space enterprise domestically and with international allies and partners. We are unique in the technical depth that we bring. I think we have a stat that says nearly it's between, I think it's about three quarters of our employees are have a technical background and technical degree. We're about 4600 employees nationwide. We have a subsidiary in the United Kingdom, Aerospace UK. And what we do is we like to say we solve the hardest problems in space and that came to new meaning for me a few years ago. When I you know I'm you think about the customers that we have commercial and government today who are dealing with problems today but we also have folks with diverse engineering and physics and science backgrounds who are looking at tomorrow's problems. They are actively going out identifying and tackling the problems that the space enterprise will contend with down the line, whether that's tomorrow, whether that's within the 2050 time frame, or even beyond. We have a strategic foresighting team that likes to look at a number of different possible futures, the four futures and those range in, you know, kind of economic progress from from high to low. There are scenarios where things have not gone well, and we like to be able to keep tabs on those possible features and how things are projecting to go along those trajectories and solve those problems as they come. One of the many reasons that we're catching up today is because we're going to be running a regular segment that you are going to be hosting featuring a lot of the incredible people at the Aerospace Corporation doing a whole bunch of different things. I guess give me the pitch for what the segment is going to be sounding like. Well, thank you. A huge thank you to you and to the team minus team for even thinking to offer this segment. We have been a recurring guest on your program. We love coming on and talking about policy, technology, you know, trends in space. And one of the things that this segment will do is to take those hard problems that I talked about. And really, I want to say very clearly that it's not just the Aerospace Show. I'm actually really excited to bring the innovators that are on the front lines of space and molding that clay I referred to earlier to talk about these hard problems. And so we're calling this nexus or what's next up in space because space loves acronyms. And what we're hoping to do is to hear from these innovators and investors who are on the front lines of these challenges about how they're aiming to solve them. We have a huge pipeline of topics we could discuss everything from, you know, common engineering environments and digital twins, which is super exciting in space rescue. Human spaceflight. We're increasingly watching how the United States and its localities in its regions are investing in space. States are investing substantially in space and pitching themselves as an important part of the space enterprise. Space ports. We talk a lot about CIS Lunar here at Aerospace, so CIS Lunar Development, and there is a very rich body of work going on all within the industrial sector in CIS Lunar space. So I really want to talk about that. I'm excited to have our first guest from commercial space from the folks at Agile Space Industries in Durango, Colorado. Join us to talk about testbeds and proving grounds and their test chambers. You've heard us wax about what we call the flight proven paradox many times. And this really is just a point in the umbrella of conversation on rapid acquisition and deployment, really getting things bought, trusted, and deployed to space much more quickly. Because the innovation is happening at such an incredible pace, we are running into new things we can do maybe every day based on the great minds that are employed at these commercial companies, based on the need, based on the landscape in space and the dynamic in space. So that's kind of what we're hoping to bring to the forefront here. How can we enable new capabilities? How can we deploy them more quickly? How can we connect into end so the, if it's the warfighter or if it's an academic customer or if it's a commercial user and operator, how can they have the full body of space at their fingertips and how can we solve the hard problems that are coming into that calculus? And hearing from the commercial folks who are on the front lines about their perspectives, not just talking about them in an open space. I want to talk a little bit about ecosystems, because that's a term that we use a lot at Aerospace. I think I've heard quite a few folks externally use the term ecosystem. It's not something you normally hear about when you're talking engineering and hardware and autonomous systems. It's a living term. It's an alive term. But really, this is an evolving ecosystem. These things have to operate together. And that is one of the biggest challenges of ensuring that innovation that's all happening at the same time is growing in the same direction. And evolution is a term you hear about all the time. We always say the rapidly evolving threat environment or the evolving space economy. And evolution is an alive term. And if we look at how evolution has worked on planet Earth, it's these incremental changes. It's these moments in time where something, some switch clicked or some new thing introduced itself into the environment and took off. And that is absolutely happening in space right now. The work we're doing here is the germination of a new human era in space. And those are the things we're going to talk about on NEXUS, what's next up in space. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Who here has an atomic clock in their house? Yes, I'm guilty. Ours keeps us on track in the kitchen when the microwave and oven clocks inevitably provide the wrong time. I blame daylight saving. As I mentioned earlier in the show, a new resupply mission is heading to the ISS. And I was curious to find out more about one of the payloads on board when I found out that it's carrying atomic clocks. The project atomic clock ensemble in space, better known as ACES, carries the most accurate clocks ever flown to space. Ferro and the space hydrogen Mesa are designed to keep time so precisely that they would lose just one second every 300 million years. The clocks were developed by the French space agency CNES and Safran Timing Technologies in Switzerland. Of course, the Swiss are involved. These European built clocks will work with the sophisticated time transfer time using microwave and laser links to synchronise the best clocks all over the Earth. The station's Canadian robotic arm will install ACES on the exterior of ESA's Columbus module as early as this week. Over its 30 month mission period, it will carry out extended measurement sessions to investigate the very nature of time and enhance global time synchronisation. Yep, my kitchen clock is going to sync up with the space station. How cool is that? It did make us wonder in our morning tag up, will the trajectory, speed and elevation of the ISS interfere with the timekeepers? I guess only time will tell. Oh, you knew I had to slip in a dad pun somewhere. [Music] That's it for Team Miners for April 21st, 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 a 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've privileged that N2K Cyberwire is 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 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 more at N2K.com. 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'm N2K Senior Producer Alice Carruth. Thanks for listening. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]