[MUSIC] Today is May 15th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] Kepler Communications has successfully demonstrated space to ground optical data relay with KyLabs. >> Four. >> York Space says its barred mission is ready for launch. >> Three. >> Viacet has selected Blue Origin to launch the demonstration of its in-range launch telemetry relay service. >> Two. >> Venus Aerospace has completed the first US flight test of a rotating detonation rocket engine. >> One. >> China has launched 12 satellites in the first deployment of a space computing constellation. [MUSIC] >> And today I'll be speaking with Paul Thomas, Accenture's new managing director and global lead of space innovation technology. Paul and I discussed the findings of Accenture's new research on how companies are adopting space into their business strategies. So stay with us to find out more on that later on the show. [MUSIC] It is Thursday everybody. I hope you're having a good one. Let's dive into today's Intel briefing. We are kicking off today with news coming out of China. A Long March 2D carrier rocket, which carried a group of 12 satellites, launched earlier today, marking the debut deployment of a space computing satellite constellation, dubbed the Three Body Computing Constellation. Chinese media shared that the spacecraft were jointly developed by Zhejiang Lab, a research institute based in Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang province, as well as with international partners. The constellation is designed to eventually comprise thousands of satellites with a combined computing power of a thousand PEDA operations per second. The constellation is designed to perform real-time data processing in orbit, addressing efficiency issues in traditional satellite systems, and accelerating the integration of artificial intelligence into space-based applications. In addition to AI-powered data processing, the satellites will carry out experimental missions, including cross-orbit laser communication and astronomical science observations. It was also the first launch of the Star Computing Plan, initiated by commercial space company, Go Qing Aerospace. Go Qing said in a press release that the constellation will complete the in-orbit verification and application of basic space-based computing functions, such as chain building, networking, and cloud formation of the space computing system. They claimed that the launch marks the opening of a new space computing era. And they shared that the satellites did successfully enter their predetermined orbit. Over to the US now, and Venus Aerospace completed the first US test flight of a rotating detonation rocket engine, also known as an RDRE. The engine is being developed with the aim of enabling vehicles to travel four to six times the speed of sound from a conventional runway. The demo took place at Space Port America in New Mexico, with Venus' RDRE successfully launching on its first attempt, validating performance and system integrity under flight conditions. Venus' RDRE is engineered to work with the company's VDR2 air-breathing detonation ramjet. This pairing will enable aircraft to take off from a runway and transition to speeds exceeding Mach 6, maintaining hypersonic crews without the need for rocket boosters. Venus is planning full-scale propulsion testing and vehicle integration of this system, moving towards their ultimate goal of a Mach 4 reusable passenger aircraft in the coming years. Next up, a flurry of space connectivity demonstrations. First, ViASAT has selected Blue Origin as its launch mission partner to support the demonstration of its in-range launch telemetry relay service as part of its work with NASA's Communication Services Project. ViASAT's Space and Mission Systems Team, which is part of the company's defense and advanced technology segment, will work with Blue Origin across two future launches to integrate the user terminal and in-range solution on the New Glenn launch vehicle to showcase this innovative space based launch communications capability. ViASAT is aiming to support NASA's plan to transition orbital communications users from NASA's tracking and data relay satellite system, also known as TDRS, to commercial SATCOM solutions. ViASAT's first New Glenn launch will be the initial in-range flight test and is currently anticipated to launch later this year. Next up, York Space says its BARD mission is ready for launch. BARD will flight demonstrate the Polylingual Experimental Terminal, which is an advanced communications technology developed in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and NASA's Space Communications and Navigation Program. The terminal is designed to enable real-time interoperability between government and commercial satellite relay networks. York plans on-orbit demos, which will conclude in April 2026 after validating the ability to communicate seamlessly with both NASA's TDRS and multiple commercial networks, as well as a direct-to-earth link. York says this communications capability represents a critical risk reduction activity as emerging NASA missions transition towards acquiring commercial space relay services by 2031. And lastly, Canada's Kepler Communications has successfully demonstrated space-to-ground optical data relay with French optical ground station company Keilabs. Kepler demonstrated full space development agency standard data rates and acquisition in multiple space-to-ground scenarios between the company's optical Pathfinder satellite equipped with TISSAT's Scott-80 in low-Earth orbit and Keilabs's optical ground station in Ren, France. Companies say that the demonstration paves the way for the future of in-space optical technology. [MUSIC PLAYING] And that concludes today's Intel Briefing. N2K senior producer Alice Carruth has more on the stories that didn't make today's top five. Alice, what is the latest with the much-anticipated launch from Gilmore Space? Maria, they experienced a delay to their first launch attempt. Adam Gilmore posted on LinkedIn, had a few issues overnight with a power system and a connection on the launch tower, means we didn't get to fill the rocket in time for this morning's launch. Currently OK to hit tomorrow morning, subject to wind. They're currently gearing up for another launch attempt shortly. That is a bummer, but all the best for them for tomorrow. Anything else for today? XenoPower has raised $50 million in a series B funding round. You can read more about that and any of the other stories mentioned throughout today's show by following the links in our show notes. Those links can also be found on our website, space.n2k.com. Just click on today's episode title. 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 like to hear from you. Just send us an email at space@n2k.com or send us a note through our website. And we can connect about building a program to meet your goals. [MUSIC PLAYING] Our guest today is Paul Thomas, Accenture's Managing Director and Global Lead of Space Innovation Technology. Paul and I spoke about new research findings released by Accenture. We did a survey last year with, I think, 1,300 executives across major companies in North America, in Europe, and in Asia Pacific. And the idea was to understand how these enterprises and these executives are looking at space technology, how they're incorporating it today if they are, and if they're not what they're thinking about for the future, or if they're not thinking about it at all. So it's kind of to get this idea about, where does it sit in most executives' eyes and strategies for their companies? And if you think about the growth of the space industry, I mean, everyone's been talking about how much the space economy is changing and the rise of CubeSats, the amount of money that's been invested here. I mean, if we think about where we are today, we're approaching what, 10,000 satellites in orbit right now. I think the predictions are something like 60,000 by 2030. That's only five years away from now. And 1.8 trillion dollar economy in the next 10 years. The amount of investments have been immense, right? I mean, we're looking at over $325 billion in investment in the past 15, 16 years. There's been such a huge amount of money that's come into the industry, a huge amount of startups and new players looking at it, as well as the traditional players keep doing what they're doing, but also look at this emerging space economy and look at these trends happening and trying to understand, well, what does that mean for them and how do they potentially shift, change, adapt, evolve, or keep the leading ground that they have? So I think the report is trying to explain some of that and from the actual, the words and the research that we've done with these executives. And I think really interesting takeaways from it, that folks who hope folks get when they read it. Number one is that 81% of leaders that we interviewed, so that's out of all of these folks, said that space technology is vital to the growth of their companies. That's incredible. If we did that survey 10 years ago, I'd be surprised if you've got 10% of executives saying that. So 80, 81% is huge. I think the other bit that was really stark on the back of it for me was actually only 18% of companies are really integrating it or working with it in earnest. We have a good percentage, around 30%, I think it's 31% if I be exact, that are, I guess, piloting, experimenting, doing POCs with space technology. So that's, I mean, so I guess in total, we're looking at 50% are doing something with space technology, but if only 80% are really using it, that leaves a huge amount of the market untapped, really, in terms of real implementations and real applications of the technology. So I think it really opens up the vast potential that space is on, as in even today. And that's not even thinking about as space technology is evolving, what other capabilities and use cases and things are gonna be emerging on the back of it. So I think it's incredible. And hopefully when people do read it, the idea is for there to be, I guess, a realization of a need for every company out there to really think about where the space fit for them. What is their space strategy? And the company should be thinking about and thinking about developing, and there's a technology strategy, the business strategy, et cetera, but there should be a space strategy or space should be a component of each of those strategies that they're putting together for them to understand how it fits within their own business. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating to hear that gap because you're totally right. I think not that long ago, people would have said that the gap maybe would have been due to an awareness issue, which I don't think anyone thinks there's an awareness issue as much anymore anyway. So what would explain that capabilities gap? Is it just a lack of maturity here? Or just people are looking for, what are people looking for there? Well, I think there's a few components to that. One of them I think is obviously there's been, and I don't know if this is a factor or preconception, but the cost is a question mark here. And how expensive is implementing space technology? And I think as with any new technology or relatively new technology as it's coming into mass, mass adoption or starting that journey to mass adoption, is there's only a few players with capabilities. And when there's only a few players with capabilities, and then you have kind of very specific and bespoke solutions around it, it can be expensive to purchase that. And so I think what's maybe been a barrier to some of the adoption or I guess more earnest adoption and scaling of the technologies is folks that have been looking at the technology, but not really understood the business case behind it, not really thought potentially in the right ways about the overall impact of employing the technology and where it can fit. I've seen people look at things in a very sort of, imagine the horse with the blinkers on, this is how I'm gonna use the technology and this is how I wanna play with it. And they play with it and this is great and it does what I wanted to do. And then it comes to, well, how do I scale that up? And what does the business case look like? And it doesn't work. And it's because they've not really thought about the bigger picture. Just looking at Earth observation technology, there's so many applications you can have for Earth observation for any one industry, that if you try and use it for just one thing, you're kind of missing a whole portion of that business case, right? Which could actually make it viable. So I think there's that component of looking at it in the right way. And as I said, incorporating it into the strategy, which maybe hasn't been done in the way it could have been done, hopefully it will be in the future. I think the second thing is then those costs. And as we have now more capabilities arriving, more companies providing different services and solutions, more choice, it's in anything, right? There's more choice, there's more availability, there's more types of solutions. It means there's more potential that there's a solution for you at the right price point. And then I think the third thing is that, there's then been a lot more understanding and applications of the space technology in certain industries. So rather than say, well, again, Earth observation can solve all of these things across all these industries. Well, actually, if you employ it, you need to think about how, what are you integrating it to? What are those legacy applications? How are you interpreting that data? What's the AI and the algorithms that you're going to employ in it to extract the right information from that data, the right markers you're going to use, et cetera. And I think now there's lots and lots of companies that are looking at it very specifically for the industries and therefore developing solutions that can take this information and adapt it to create specific solutions for these specific industries. And that's where the key magic is going to be, is actually real world use cases and real world applications that benefit these industries in these ways, not this one size fits all. - I was going to say in that way, the ideas start to proliferate and yeah, go ahead. - The other thing is skills, right? And the talent and having people that have the experience and understanding to be able to use that, you know, use that data. So I think there's a skill gap too, which is a big one and a fearful one for companies sometimes to think about how to invest in it, right? Because that's not, you know, sometimes they need to think about having whole teams, you know, to be able to support this and how do they do that, how do they have skillet, where do they find those folks if there's a new areas for them? So that's also a challenge. So hopefully, you know, what the report does is help sort of bring those things to life a little bit and help companies understand that, you know, if you're building this strategy, you're building this vision, what are the three, I guess, key things that companies should be thinking about? So, you know, if we say-- - Yeah, I was going to say, you sort of started touching on those, but I'd love for us to go over those maybe a little more formally, like one, two, three, what those takeaways should be. - Yeah, so the three things we've identified really is the number one is really develop a comprehensive vision, develop a strategy, basically. And so it's thinking about things, you know, enterprise-wide across your company, it's holistic, and it's about real-world applications and viable applications. Second thing is focus on talent development. And so it's how do you identify what talent you have internally that could, you know, be developed, you know, to be able to support what you're trying to do or what you need to do in terms of bringing talent in, how do you upscale, how do you bring in the right folks? Or if not, how do you work with the right types of partners or players that can compliment you with those resources, right? Which is kind of linked to the third thing, which is about activating the ecosystem, because that space ecosystem is huge and it's really varied and it's actually quite complex. And if you're coming first time into this and understanding, well, who can help me? There's thousands of companies that can offer some component of a solution. And so it can be quite scary for a company to look at that and go, why don't I have no idea where to start or to jump on the first, you know, company that says, well, I can do that. And then maybe not realize that actually they can't do all of what you need. So I think building that ecosystem of partners, collaborating with the space technology ecosystem. So not, and you know, there's space companies that establish players, as I said, some of the new, you know, the startups developing solutions out there. Even, you know, the data and analytics players out there that are building some of these bespoke algorithms, right? Space agencies, I mean, most space agencies, looking at how do they help develop the space ecosystem? How do they ensure that space is now proliferating into business and businesses and understanding how to adopt it as well? So actually building relationships there can also be beneficial. Some of the space agencies even have upskilling programs as well that they can, you know, that they can tap into too at the same time. So I think those are kind of the three things that we're advising the company should do. - Fantastic, well, thank you for going over those. And I'm curious what you think you will see in a year, any shifts or small or large, any predictions on that front? - Well, I have to be careful what I say here now, don't I? (laughing) So, no, I think, you know, the whole geopolitical landscape right now is very volatile as everybody knows. And that is leading to a huge conversation around obviously defense capabilities for nations specifically. And given, I think, some more recent developments, that, you know, there's a Europe in particular, and I'm based in Europe, so I see this probably more, you know, more firsthand, is, you know, Europe looking at sovereign capabilities to be able to, you know, to do things that they need to do. And so I think that what's gonna be interesting over the next few years, really, a decade is actually seeing how, when we're seeing already increased, you know, potential spend in those areas, which means that there's gonna be more spend happening there and then more development in the defense arena, and more employment of space technology, I guess, is a key component of that. So, you know, from earth observation, to space domain awareness, to, you know, communications and connectivity and resiliency, to security, you know, all of these different things. And space is gonna play a much bigger role in defense, I think, for pretty much everybody. So I can see that, you know, in the years time, when we're talking again, I think we'll have seen some, you know, more movement in that arena, for sure. I think the other thing that, you know, there seems to be a lot more happening around implementations of space technology for governmental organizations to help with things like managing fragile ecosystems, for example, with helping, you know, from the sustainability side of things, with managing, you know, land, you know, agriculture, or with supporting, you know, from a natural disasters perspective as well. So I think there's gonna be a lot more movement in those areas. What we've seen just even this year with, you know, unfortunately, you know, in California, in Spain with the floods, for example, you know, countless countries, we've seen so many natural disasters happening now where, you know, we know that if the Earth observation capability is, you know, combined with other, you know, geo and weather information, et cetera, I mean, there's so much more, I think, that could have been done to help and prevent in some of those cases that's definitely, you know, very, I'm really interested to see progress. We'll be right back. Welcome back. What's that saying? You can't teach an old dog new tricks? Well, definitely do not tell the engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California because they've revived a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft that had been considered inoperable since 2004. I mean, that is some engineering feat, right? Not only have they been out of commission for over 20 years, but, you know, Voyager 1 is currently hurtling through interstellar space at speeds of around 35,000 miles an hour, some 15.5, no, excuse me, some 15.5 billion miles away from the Earth. So it's not like they could get a hands-on with the problem. Yeah, not to mention that many of the engineers working on this have probably never even seen the Voyager spacecraft in person because you remember it launched in 1977. NASA says fixing the thrusters required some quote, "creativity," no kidding, right? And some risk, of course, but the team wanted to have them available as a backup to a set of active thrusters whose fuel tubes are experiencing a buildup of residue that could cause them to stop working as early as this fall. And the engineers did manage to get the thrusters working before the deadline of May 4th when the Earthbound antenna that sends commands to Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 went offline for months of upgrades. So honestly, seriously, bravo, teams. And a note about those antenna upgrades from May 4th, 2025 through February, 2026. Deep Space Station 43, which is a 230-foot wide antenna in Canberra, Australia, and that is part of NASA's Deep Space Network is undergoing upgrades. And it will be offline for most of that time with brief periods of operation in August and December. So yes, the Deep Space Network has three complexes equally spaced around the globe in Goldstone, California, Madrid, Spain, and Australia, of course, all to ensure constant contact with spacecraft as the Earth rotates. It must be noted that DSS 43, the one in Australia, is the only dish with enough signal power to send commands to the Voyagers. So we expect it may be some time till we know how the long-dormant thrusters continue to perform. (upbeat music) That's it for T-Minus from May 15th, 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 Kilpe is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. I'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - T-Minus. (upbeat music) (door slams) [BLANK_AUDIO]
