Space for reusable hypersonics.

Today is May 6th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-minus. I-Space's resilience lunar lander slated to enter lunar orbit tomorrow, May 7th. Rocket Lab has announced its next dedicated mission for IQPS on May 17th. RIVADA Space and Pulsar Solutions to partner on secure connectivity. Deorbit has signed a contract with SpaceX for additional launch capacity on upcoming Transporter ride-share missions. StratoLaunch's Talon A2 vehicle successfully completed its second Hypersonic flight and recovery last month. And today's guest is Chuck Sineman, President of Telosat Government Solutions. I caught up with Chuck at Space Symposium to find out the latest news with light speed, so stick around to find out more later in the show. Happy Tuesday, everybody! It is admittedly another quiet day here in the United States as the space industry holds its breath to see what comes next with federal projects. But we still have updates and new partnership announcements to get through in today's Intelligence Briefing, so let's dive in. We're kicking off with updates out of California. StratoLaunch's Talon A2 vehicle successfully completed its second Hypersonic flight and recovery last month. This follows the first Hypersonic flight of Talon A2, which was in December 2024, confirming the demonstrated reusability of the vehicle. The vehicle surpassed Mach 5 during its trajectory for the second time, exceeding the previous speed record set with the December flight. And StratoLaunch used Ursa Major's Hadley liquid rocket engine for the Hypersonic tests, and says these completed flights represent the United States' return to reusable Hypersonic flight tests. The first, since the X-15 program, ended in 1968. The company performed the flights for the Test Resource Management Center multi-service advanced capability Hypersonic test bed program, also known as Mach-TB, under a partnership with LIDOS. The Mach-TB program is intended to increase the speed of testing for all commercially available Hypersonic platforms. George Rumford, director of the Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center, added to the press release that "demonstrating the reuse of fully-recoverable Hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for Mach-TB," and added "that lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months down to weeks. Congratulations to all involved." Moving over to some partnership updates now, starting with Italy's Deorbit. They have signed a contract with SpaceX for additional launch capacity on upcoming transporter ride-share missions. The agreement gives Deorbit 16 ports across multiple missions. This new capacity will enable Deorbit to further scale its offering of launch, last-mile delivery services, and in-orbit demonstration opportunities for third-party payloads. The Italian company already has four launches scheduled for 2025 in addition to the new contract. Ravada Space and Pulsar Solutions say that they will partner on secure connectivity for customers in commercial maritime, agritech, enterprise, and government markets. Pulsar plans to use Ravada's OuterNet to provide resiliency for a range of data connectivity solutions and a new level of cybersecurity for customers that require secure infrastructure in places with limited or no connectivity. Ravada Space Networks is scheduled for initial deployment of their OuterNet satellite constellation this year, with full deployment anticipated by mid-2028. Rocket Lab has announced its next dedicated mission for Japan's Institute for Q-Shoe Pioneers of Space, also known as IQPS. The SeaGod Seas is Rocket Lab's third mission for IQPS, and the second in a lineup of eight dedicated missions across 2025 and 2026 to deploy IQPS's constellation. The mission will launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand during a launch window that opens on May 17. Rocket Lab will launch a single synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite called QPS-SAR-10, nicknamed "Wadatsumi-1" for the Japanese God of the Sea, to a 575 km circular Earth orbit where the satellite will join the rest of the IQPS constellation in providing high-resolution images and Earth monitoring services globally. And I-Space's resilience lunar lander is slated to enter lunar orbit tomorrow, May 7. Resilience, the tenacious micro rover, and customer payloads that they are all carrying began their journey to the Moon on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket earlier this year. They flew by the Moon once already as part of the low-energy transfer orbit and reached a distance of approximately 1.1 million km from Earth, and are now back from their deep space journey and getting ready for LOI, or Lunar Orbit Insertion. Completion of the first lunar orbit insertion maneuver and confirmation that the lander is in lunar orbit will complete success 7 of the Mission 2 milestones, and we should have more on that milestone on tomorrow's show. . And that wraps up today's Intel Briefing. Our senior producer, Al Scrooth, is keeping an eye on additional stories that didn't make today's top five. Al, what have you got for us? Europe's quantum systems, who are a supplier for aerial intelligence solutions, just raised €160 million for their unmanned aerial systems. It's a little more space-adjacent, but definitely a company we're keeping an eye on. And where can our listeners read more about that? We've included the link in our selected reading section of our show notes, and you'll also find them all on our website, space.ntuk.com. Just click on today's episode title. Hey Team Minus Crew, if you are just joining us, be sure to follow Team Minus Space Daily in your favorite podcast app. Also, if you could do us a favor, share the Intel with your friends and coworkers. So here's a little challenge for you. By Friday, please show three friends or coworkers this podcast. A growing audience is the most important thing for us, and we would love your help as part of the Team Minus Crew. If you find Team 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 Team Minus. [Music] Our guest today is Chuck Sineman, president of Telesat Government Solutions. I caught up with Chuck at the Space Symposium and asked for the latest news about their light speed constellation. Light speed was specifically built or being built for enterprise, government, and defense users. It's not for the consumer direct-to-home kind of capabilities. It's for the telcos, it's for government, for defense. And one of the most important things that the company has done from the beginning in this design with MDA space is to build in the cybersecurity and the U.S. government security requirements from the very start. It's not a bolt-on after the fact. And so I think that's very synergistic with a company like Biasat, who's been at the forefront for government networks, military networks based upon secure networks. So I'm very excited because it brings that multi-orbit capability that the DOD, actually all the international partners, and even the commercial telcos are looking for, is having that multi-orbit, multi-frequency kind of capability. And I think it's a great partnership. Well, congratulations on that wonderful news. And yes, so much of what you just said aligns with a lot of where we hear market trends moving towards in terms of the integration from development onwards of security, especially for these sensitive customers, as you mentioned, as well as working within proliferated Leo constellations makes a lot of sense. It's really where things are moving in the right direction. So it's great to hear that you all are at the forefront of that as well. Yeah. And the fact that security was built in from the beginning, it kind of broadens the perspective in how our customers can access, potentially even own a piece of a Telosat network. Tell me more about that. Yeah. So, traditionally, the geo constellations, you have people that are kind of leasing bandwidth to run their networks over. One of the innovative ways that Lightspeed is going to offer service is capacity pools, which actually sells pools either by volume or by data rate to customers to allow them to basically own that capacity and operate it for themselves. And we believe that this is going to have a, be a needle moving capability that, again, government and defense, we're already seeing it on the enterprise side. The commercial team has already done some early sales. You heard about the orange, orange landing station capacity by the Space Norway deal. So those things are indicative of early commitments by the Telco side of things. And they're going to have a landing station as well as a capacity pool. Again, even with Viacet, they're going to have access to capability that is going to bolster their aero and maritime and defense markets. But again, for militaries and even international partners, the ability to have something like a capacity pool that now they can share and use as contribution to a joint operation in the future, we see that as kind of game changing versus, hey, you're just leasing this particular satellite or bandwidth over the satellite. It sounds like a paradigm shift, honestly. It makes a lot of sense given the challenges and not just in the market, but also the opportunities that people are looking for. So I think it makes a lot of sense. I'm curious about your thoughts about maybe trends and satellite that you're seeing that are going on right now. Well, I mean, obviously, the big trend is the transition from the geo market to the leo market. I mean, the big thing that people are looking for is the reduction in latency from a government and defense. It's all about not only the resiliency, but the security. We know that there are emerging threats and active threats against the geo constellation or constellations in geo. I mean, if you think about it, and a satellite that's in geo stays over the same place of the planet 24/7, 365. It gives constant access to a would be adversary to understand how we use the satellite and to plan to do something nefarious. The thing that other orbits, whether it be the medium-Earth orbit and specifically leo and even like what Norway's doing, space Norway with the HEO orbit, that gives a different kind of problem from an adversary to understand who's operating on the satellite, where they're communicating from, where the network's going, where the traffic's going. Again, that's another thing that I think is a differentiator. I'm very excited about within light speed is the idea that we're going to have the optical inter-satellite links that would allow somebody on one side of the planet to have their traffic land wherever they want or not land. Or not, I was going to say. Yeah. In certain places that maybe they don't want it. Hop over that early, yes. But using those links, not sacrificing that much in terms of that latency, still getting their traffic to land where they want. That entire end-to-end network looks nothing more than like an ethernet plug in terms of that optical ethernet standard that light speed is using. It's fantastic. So it's very exciting. I think it also offers the opportunity to kind of coalesce around a standard that perhaps allows for interoperability amongst other LEO constellations. That's another hot topic there. Even if it has to be done on the ground. Yeah. So again, in terms of what are the emerging trends, the government's been pursuing for a while. This thing called multi-orbit, multi-frequency terminals and networks. That was something that was near and dear to my heart when I was in LA. We were kind of reimagined what does the future of SATCOM look like if you're going to integrate and have hybrid networks between commercial and military. What are the standards that are going to allow for that interoperability and the terminals? It's not something you want to figure out later. Yeah. You got to figure that out up front. It's a very complex undertaking. And by the way, light speed is a very complex system. I'm very excited to see how the teams are working together. I just spent a week in Ottawa with the team hearing from all the leadership there. And I'm pretty excited about the progress that's being made. That's fantastic. Well, I really appreciate you sharing all this with me. I want to make sure I give the opportunity to share any final thoughts before we wrap up. I think the next 18 to 24 months for light speed and for TELSAT are going to be very exciting. We've got our challenges, obviously. This is a very complex system. But again, I know that the team that light speed has put together to deliver the system is going to do a great job. We'll be right back. Welcome back. You know, the more I work on this show, the more I find myself brushing off long dormant crevices of my brain that once knew a thing or two about the basics of nuclear power. Now, nukes have always had a part to play in powering space missions and have for a long time. There are some interesting new developments in the last few years, though. And here's another one. This one comes from Japan as it is turning to a long overlooked element to power its future space missions. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency or JAEA and JAXA are developing a radio isotope battery based on Emericium. Now, Emericium is a synthetic element so named because it was first created during World War II at UC Berkeley and sits under its analogous element, Europium, on the periodic table. Little science history for you there. Emericium, which is number 95 on the periodic table, is usually considered a nuclear oddball. It's best known for making smoke detectors work. It's a byproduct of plutonium decay and has a half-life of over 400 years and gives off steady heat without the kind of fission that demands heavy shielding. That made it historically less attractive than plutonium-238, which powers NASA's deep space probes, but also made it hard to weaponize. And that is something that might actually work in its favor for peaceful space applications today. So, Japan wants to use Emericium's consistent heat to generate power for missions that need decades-long battery life. That would include probes heading beyond Jupiter or rovers exploring the frigid two-week lunar night. The idea is that Emericium could become a compact, maintenance-free power source that can survive moon dust, temperature swings, and even a rocket explosion. Japan already has a working Emericium-powered LED demonstration, and JAEA says they are aiming for a space-ready prototype by 2029. That's it for T-Mine. It's from May 6, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. For privilege, 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'm your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T-Minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]