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Today is April 29, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] China's Long March 5B carrier rocket launched satellites to Leo from the Wenchang Space Launch site. Four. Rivada Space Networks has added market access in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Costa Rica to its OuterNet constellation. Three. Arian Space successfully launched ESA's Earth Explorer biomass satellite from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana. Two. Firefly launches the Flight A006 message in a booster mission for Lockheed Martin, but experiences a second stage anomaly. One. United Launch Alliance launches the first batch of Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Our guest today is Dr. Debra Emens, the Aerospace Corporation's Vice President and CTO. I caught up with Dr. Emens at the Space Symposium to chat about the Aerospace Corporation's latest research and development, so stick around to find out more about it. [MUSIC] Happy Tuesday, everybody. We have four launches to discuss this morning, so let's get into today's Intel briefing, shall we? We're starting off with the much-anticipated United Launch Alliance launch of the first batch of Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites. An Atlas V rocket carried the Kuiper-1 mission from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Five solid rocket boosters helped propel the rocket and the 27 satellites onboard to Leo. The mission marks the beginning of full-scale deployment of the Kuiper constellation. Rivaling SpaceX's Starlink, Amazon plans to deploy a large constellation to provide low-latency internet for commercial customers, both civilian and governmental. Amazon says it will begin customer service once the first 578 satellites are launched and operational. In addition to the successful launch of two Kuiper-SAT prototypes in 2023 and another seven launches aboard Atlas V, Project Kuiper will leverage the next-generation Vulcan rocket for 38 high-cadence rapid-fire launches, positioning ULA to deliver more than half of the constellation's more than 3,200 satellites in the coming years. Firefly Aerospace's Alpha Rocket lifted off from a very foggy Vandenberg Space Force base this morning. Following the nominal lift-off, Firefly says that the Alpha Rocket experienced a mishap during the second stage separation. That mishap put the spacecraft in a lower-than-planned orbit. The Alpha Flight A006 message in a booster mission is Firefly's second mission for Lockheed Martin and the first of a multi-launch agreement with Lockheed Martin that includes up to 25 missions over the next five years. The mission carried Lockheed Martin's LM400 tech demo to prove out the risk reduction and path-finding efforts that the company has done for its multi-mission satellite bus. Firefly says it is working with Lockheed Martin, the US Space Force and the FAA, to determine the cause of the mishap. And yet another piece of launch news next. Arian Space successfully launched the European Space Agency's Earth Explorer biomass satellite from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana earlier today. The mission, called VV26, saw the Vega-C launcher releasing biomass in the target orbit. On 14 minutes after separation, ESA successfully acquired signals from the satellite. The biomass satellite carries the first P-band synthetic aperture radar to observe Earth from space. The radar signal can penetrate all the way through the forest canopy, allowing it to collect information on the height and structure of different forest types, and measure the amount of carbon stored in the world's forests and how it changes over time. In addition, the biomass mission will map subsurface geology in deserts, the ice structure of ice sheets, and the topography of forest floors. Biomass was manufactured by Airbus Defense and Space and will spend at least five years making detailed observations and witnessing at least eight growth cycles in the world's forests. Ravada Space Network says it has secured market access to its outer-net constellation in 33 countries and every continent. Belgium, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Costa Rica are among the latest nations to soon offer next-generation communications capabilities. Ravada says that collectively, it has communications service agreements signed with nations, governments, and corporations worth more than $16 billion for outer-net connectivity, and initial tests for the outer-net constellation are set for 2026. And if you thought we were done with launch news, oh no, there's still more. ULA isn't the only launch company that carried communications satellites to Leo in the last 24 hours. China's Long March 5B carrier rocket lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in the southern province of Hainan earlier today. The rocket carried the third batch of satellites for a planned internet constellation. Chinese media did not share how many satellites were aboard the launch, only that they successfully entered the preset orbit. [Music] That concludes our roundup of today's top five stories. N2K senior producer Alice Carruth, tell us what other stories should we be keeping an eye on today. Maria, we've included two additional links in the selected reading section of today's show notes. The first is on the vote for SpaceX's beach access at Boca Chica, Texas. I'm heading there this summer so I hope I can still get close to Starbase. And the other is a link to Beakwire's article on Radiant Aerospace. And as a reminder, those links can also be found on our website space.n2k.com. Hey T-minus crew, if you're just joining us, be sure to follow T-minusSpace Daily in your favorite podcast app. Also please do us a favor, share the intel with your friends and coworkers. So here's a little challenge for you. By Friday, maybe you can show three friends or coworkers this podcast. That's because a growing audience is the most important thing for us and we would love your help as part of the T-minus crew. So if you find T-minus useful, please share so other professionals like you can find the show. Thank you. It means a lot to me and all of us here at T-minus. [Music] Our guest today is Dr. Deborah Emmons, the Aerospace Corporation's Vice President and CTO. I caught up with Dr. Emmons at the 40th Space Symposium and asked about their technology readiness level boot camp. [Music] So let's start with a little bit of the background then. I mean, so first off, the space domain as we know has really been evolving at a rapid pace. We have seen in the last few years historic private investments. So we have a lot more commercial capability that's coming on the scene. The national security threats are growing. So the U.S. government has turned and has really been asking, how do we take advantage of this commercial capability? How do we do that? How do we integrate that into our architectures? How do we get to hybrid architectures? So given our role operating in FFRDC, we have been really working at that nexus between commercial and government. So three years ago, we launched Commercial Space Futures Initiative and that is really working as a trusted and integral partner to the government and really trying to more rapidly increase the commercial integration of these capabilities. So let's talk a little bit about what we introduced. It was a partnership between Aerospace and the Space Force and specifically Spaceworks to introduce a way to be able to test out and bring the subject matter experts and these new small businesses and a way to advance their technologies and get them more mature. So it's really about maturing low TRL capabilities and giving them advice. And so part of that program, the first cohort of the TRL bootcamp was focused on in-space assembly and manufacturing. And what TRL levels were we talking about? Like when we're talking about low, like one, two? Yeah, so two sort of very low concepts that haven't been proven all the way to TRL tech readiness level nine, where it's like, you know, ready for flight. They've done it. Yes. So we're kind of in that earlier stage here and we're really trying to help these companies, you know, get through that valley of death. And so part of this program not only is it providing more funding and so now it's more significant multimillion dollars of award in many cases now. And part of that is to have them have access to our laboratories and the subject matter experts. We have 100,000 square feet of laboratory space at Aerospace and experts across the space domain. So this first cohort focused on, you know, in-space assembly manufacturing, we put seven different companies through that program. And now we're teaming up for, I'll say, other mission areas. So they're looking, the next cohort is going to be in technically responsive space. So we heard a lot about space domain awareness. And then the third area that they're looking at is alternative P&T. So I would love to know sort of lessons learned from that first bootcamp and maybe what you all are taking to the next iterations. Yeah, that's a great question. Well I say right now the program is nascent. And so part of that, I think one of the lessons or insights is, you know, how do you scale it? How do you kind of move it into other mission areas? How do you move it even to other parts of government? And you know, also excited to say that there's a really nice partnership that's formed between the DOD with the Spaceworks program and NASA where NASA really wants to be able to do some of the same things. Oh, wow. That's great. So some of the lessons really are thinking about how do you scale it? How do you go faster? I do think there are definite benefits where, you know, the government gains insight and confidence into the products of what these, you know, startups are trying to work on. And then, you know, it also is another way to really enable better coordination between government and private capital, which is another really key part of that Spaceworks bootcamp program. So encouraging to hear that you all are working on such a great initiative like this. Yeah. And I'll just maybe add one more on the lessons. So I think scaling it, really seeing more programs and then the ultimate outcomes of success are really seeing that these capabilities move beyond the bootcamp and then get inserted and on ramped into programs of record. So there are close ties being formed between this program and the PEOs. But that's really, I think, where we need to see more of those outcomes. So I guess stay tuned on that one. Yes. But we'll keep an eye on it for sure. That's fantastic. It's so great to hear about that. So the solution accelerator. Tell me a little bit about that, please. Yeah. So the solution accelerator, we launched that last July and it's really a transformative initiative that tries to get after the hardest problems. So it's really about driving some of the things that we see right now, high stakes, urgent problems in national security space. And there's really kind of, I'll say two flavors of things that we're getting after here. The first is that grand challenges with some of these things that are really impactful to the nation, whether that's in missile defense or human exploration or even in wildfire detection. And I could talk a little bit more about those types. So that's the one, I'll say, flavor of hard problem. The other type here we're going after is in our advanced concepts area. And that's really trying to take advantage of some of the game changing technologies and really integrate those into solutions and move with speed. And so part of this is really getting at things that can move out and get to more speedy solutions, working with government, working with more of the commercial industry. And so that's really what we're trying to tackle here. Yeah, accelerator, absolutely. It's baked in. So yeah, the first example you told me about the wildfire, I'll just pick on that one. Probably my previous one was to talk about more openly. Any detail you can tell me about that? Yeah. So wildfire and then a little bit maybe about this, human exploration. So with the wildfire, so certainly we've seen wildfires impacting us across the country and the nation and escalating. And so there's really implications for people and infrastructure. So what we're doing is looking at some of the, I'll say, critical intelligence gaps in this whole thinking about how you detect wildfire, preventing them all the way through. How do you think about closing that chain? It's really about getting information to those that need it at the right times. And that's part of the ways we can think about this as a systems problem, just like we approach all these other engineering problems. And we're looking at that in the wildfire area. And so I'll just note that some of the solutions we're thinking about are in the area of how do you better detect and prevent the wildfires and how do you do some of that overall surveillance? I'm curious about the technology aspect of that as well, anything we can talk about there. Well, I would just say, I'll just say aerospace has been a long pioneer in novel infrared remote sensing. And so we've done a lot of prototypes that, you know, across that board and a lot of those have been for national security. I'll say national security missions. But a lot of that, you know, you can think about those sensors and applicability into the wildfire area. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's what we might think where we're looking in one domain and looking at how we can help in this other really important national area of interest or problem. Makes a lot of sense. The second half of what you had mentioned earlier, we were talking about those game changers. What can you tell me there? I'd love to hear more about that too. Yeah. So again, so I did mention here already a little bit about our background in the prototypes. So one of the things there now we're doing is pursuing some low-cost mission-capable prototypes that can give the Department of Defense better information and better awareness in this space domain. So we are looking at some concepts here that can help address some of that faster, the space domain awareness and the intelligence reconnaissance and surveillance. Another really key area that we're working on with game-changing technologies is in AI and autonomy for rendezvous and proxops. We've been hearing a lot about in-space assembly manufacturing and maneuvering closed satellites. So we are pursuing a cost-effective free-flying formation test bed. And it's really to try to test out some new autonomy algorithms, low-size-weight-empower sensors, as well as onboard computing. So this is really now bringing more of the compute at the edge. Yeah, I was just thinking that. Yeah, exactly. So what's so exciting here is so this is a multi-vehicle test beds, and so it's two 6U cube sets. And for a reminder, if you think about a cube set, a 3U cube set is normally the size of a breadboard. Right, loaf of bread. I was thinking of breadbox, and we actually get the say about the size of breadbox. Exactly. So now for a 6U, you can think about these two lobes of bread next to each other. So it's two 6U cube sets, and they're going to be allowing for us to kind of test out some close proximity maneuvers, and both do, you know, thinking through some of the things for on-orbit inspection and servicing. And it's really going to be really getting at those sensors, the algorithms, and the edge compute. So we're going to do that here. So that's one that we have in development, and obviously a number of customer interests there. I got to say on a personal level, that is probably one of my favorite things that I get really most jazzed about when I think about the application of AI and the space demand. Because in that specific use case, I just go, "That is just so perfect." It just feels like we're living in the future every time I think about that. Well, yes. And that's where it's so exciting too. There's so many developments that have been made there and by, you know, commercial companies in AI. And so what we want to do is build on those algorithms and then apply it into that space domain. It's so many. Yeah. I totally geek out about that. It's just so cool. Yes, yes. Well, yes. I would imagine you would as well. Yeah, I mean, it's a really exciting one. And we've just been working a lot on our own AI strategy and so we're excited about that. That is so neat. I just love that. You've told me about some fantastic programs here and I just want to give you an opportunity to maybe a little zoom out perspective on, you know, enabling these incredible technologies in the commercial sector with, but also with, you know, the participation of federal and all that kind of thing. Like where are we headed? What are your thoughts on, you know, the next steps and all that kind of thing? Yeah. And what's really important here with all this is we want to keep the eye on the outcomes and getting to really agile solutions here. And so a lot of what we're talking about here, we want to see transferred over to industry or working with industry and then implemented, you know, in short order here for some of these really important needs in national security space. . And we'll be right back. Welcome back. Satellites have become the silent workhorses of modern life. We rely on them for everything from financial transactions to navigation, but they are in danger of being exploited. Experts are warning that we're facing a pattern of persistent digital assaults that could have far reaching consequences on everything from military operations to climate monitoring. Just this year, multiple nations and private operators have reported unexplained outages, signal jamming and unauthorized access attempts. And while attribution as always is murky and difficult at best, it often points to state backed actors and the effect nonetheless is very real. When satellites go dark, so do early warning systems, encrypted communications and even GPS enabled infrastructure. The vulnerabilities are compounded by the fact that many older satellites weren't built with cybersecurity in mind. As one analyst put it, we're flying 1990s tech in a 2020s threat landscape. So what can be done? Agencies like the US Space Force and the European Space Agency are stepping up investments in space cyber defense and commercial players are exploring onboard AI firewalls and real-time anomaly detection. The challenge is scale. With thousands of active satellites and tens of thousands more planned, defending the final frontier is a race against time. Or entering an era where space security isn't just about orbital debris or anti-satellite missiles, it is about bites and breaches. This feels like a good time for me to mention that N2K, my employer, is more than just a media company. We actually offer some great training programs in cybersecurity, so if you feel unprepared for what lies ahead, maybe give us a call and we will help you upskill in threat preparedness. After all, no one wants their very expensive asset to be vulnerable to hackers. Remember, the air gap alone is not enough to keep your spacecraft safe. That's it for T-minus for April 29, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. 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 Kilpe is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T-minus. T-minus. [Loud thud] [Loud thud] [BLANK_AUDIO]
