[MUSIC] Today is May 30th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] The European Space Agency officially marks 50 years in operation. The Snowdonia Space Center in Wales has officially opened its doors. Three. Jaguar Space is collaborating with the Karman Project on a multinational mission to the ISS. Two. Chinese startup Space Epoch has completed its first sea recovery test of a verification rocket. One. Northrop Grumman has invested $50 million into Firefly Aerospace to further advance the production of their co-developed medium launch vehicle now known as Eclipse. [MUSIC] On Friday, our partners at nasaspaceflight.com share their space traffic report with us. And they will be wrapping up the launch news from the last seven days and taking a look at what's to come in the week ahead. Stay with us. [MUSIC] Happy Friday everybody. Let's dive into our intelligence briefing before we take a listen to that space traffic report, shall we? First up, Northrop Grumman has invested $50 million into Firefly Aerospace to further advance production of their co-developed medium launch vehicle that's now known as Eclipse. The companies say that they're continuing to make progress in the development of Eclipse flight hardware with qualification testing underway and more than 60 Miranda engine hot fire tests performed to date. Eclipse is built on a combination of engineering heritage from Northrop Grumman's Antares and Firefly's Alpha Rocket and offers upgrades in power, performance, production cadence, and payload capacity. The launch vehicle retains the flight proven avionics from the Antares program with additional developments including a larger 5.4 meter payload fairing. Eclipse also uses the same first stage that Firefly is developing for Antares 330 and retains scaled up versions of Alpha's propulsion systems and carbon composite structures, which all allows the team to rapidly build and test Eclipse with significant production efficiencies and economies of scale. Eclipse will first launch from Wallops Island, Virginia as early as 2026. The teams say it's able to support space station resupply, commercial spacecraft, critical national security missions, and scientific payloads for the domestic and international markets. Chinese startup Space Epoch has completed its first sea recovery test of what's being called a verification rocket. The spacecraft completed a 125 second flight, reaching an altitude of approximately 2.5 kilometers during its full thrust ascent before it descended vertically into the waters off the coast of Shandong Province in eastern China. Chinese media says the rocket performed nominally throughout the test, with experts declaring the sea landing recovery a success. And we're sure it's just the start of more sea launch and landing missions in China. Jaguar Space is collaborating with the Karman project on a multinational mission to the International Space Station. This project brings together Armenia, Egypt, Nigeria, and Pakistan under a shared vision, which is to connect cultural heritage and scientific inquiry through space-based agricultural research. This is really cool. The mission centers on seeds of historical and cultural significance, and that would be Egyptian cotton, Armenian pomegranate, Nigerian igousimelon, and Pakistani wheat. These plants, which are considered integral to national identities and economies, will be sent to the ISS for a multi-day stay in microgravity before returning to Earth for continued research and public engagement. It is hoped that by studying how these culturally meaningful crops respond to spaceflight, the project will be able to deepen understanding of seed resilience and plant biology in extreme environments. Over to Wales now, and the Snowdonia Space Center has officially opened its doors. The center is a joint venture between the Snowdonia Aerospace Center and Newton Launch Systems. The new center received 820,000 pounds of funding from the UK Space Agency to support its development, and it was all part of a total investment made in excess of 1.3 million pounds. It's hoped that it will provide a much-needed boost for the local economy, generating business growth and employment opportunities. The grand opening was celebrated in style with a high-altitude balloon launch with an attached CubeSat and featured a live rocket-firing demonstration conducted by Launch Access. The facilities include a purpose-built laboratory with testing equipment, a rocket engine test stand and two launch rails, as well as a flight test range for trialing and researching various modes of spaceflight, such as rocket-powered vehicles and near-space scientific flights. It'll also be home to educational facilities to support both universities and primary and secondary STEM learning. It has already hosted a number of rocketry and CANSAT-focused STEM events for Welsh pupils with the aim of expanding these opportunities in the future. And today, May 30 marks 50 years of the European Space Agency. On May 30, 1975, the ESA Convention was signed by 10 founding member states. It has since expanded to 23 member states, three associate members, four cooperating states and a cooperation agreement with Canada. And to mark their 50th anniversary, the Royal Mint of Belgium and the Royal Dutch Mint are issuing limited-edition commemorative Eurocoins. The celebration also coincides with the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II and, as we mentioned in a show earlier this week, ESA will be honoring this convergence of milestones by broadcasting the Blue Danube waltz into the cosmos from its deep space antenna in Severo, Spain, which also happens to be marking its 20th year in service. Congratulations, ESA! That concludes our Intel briefing for today. Stay with us for the Space Traffic Report from NSF. But before we get into that, N2K Senior Producer Alice Carruth is here, and she's keeping an eye on the other stories making headlines in the space industry today. Alice, what have you got? Well, Maria, at the time of recording today's show, we're waiting on SpaceX's launch of a GPS satellite for the US Space Force. Hopefully that's taken off by the time we publish. We're also watching Blue Origin's NS32 mission, which is due to lift off from West Texas tomorrow, near to where I'll be it for the I reckon a few weeks. And we're looking forward to Portal Space's inaugural on-albit demonstration, which has recently been announced. These are all great launches to keep an eye on. Where can we find more details about them? Great question. Thanks to further reading on all the stories we mentioned throughout this episode in the selected reading section of our show notes. Those links can also be found on our website, space.n2k.com. Simply click on today's episode title. Hey T-minus crew, tune in tomorrow for T-minus Deep Space. It's our show for extended interviews, special editions, and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. And tomorrow we have an AWS in orbit episode with the United Launch Alliance, aka ULA, talking about recent launches and secure Gov cloud. Check it out while you're walking the dog, catching up on the gardening, or generally decompressing from the week that was. You don't want to miss it. [Music] Our partners at nasaspaceflight.com now have the weekly space traffic report. [Music] I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF and this is your weekly space traffic report for T-minus space. We kicked off the week with a Starlink launch from Vandenberg on May 23rd at 2232 UTC. The mission was carrying 27 Starlink V2 mini satellites into low Earth orbit. The first stage for this flight was flying for the 18th time and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship of course I still love you. From the other side of the US in Florida, we had another Starlink launch on May 24th at 1719 UTC carrying a mixed batch of Starlink V2 mini and direct to cell satellites. The first stage for this mission was flying for its 24th time and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship a shortfall of gravitas. The Starlink frenzy continued from Vandenberg with a rather quick turnaround and a launch on May 27th at 1657 UTC. The mission was carrying 24 Starlink V2 mini satellites into sun synchronous orbit. This was the first Group 17 Starlink mission and the first batch of Starlink V2 mini satellites launched into sun synchronous orbit. This is also the first launch of Starlink satellites to sun synchronous orbit since the Starlink Group 3-5 mission back in April 2023, although that mission carried the older Starlink V1.5 satellites. These Group 17 missions may be intended to replace and upgrade those older satellites with the newer more capable V2 mini satellites. The first stage for this flight was launching for a 13th time and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship Of Course I Still Love You. This week we also had the 9th launch of the world's most powerful rocket, Starship. The launch took place on May 27th at 2336 UTC from Starbase, Texas. This was the first time SpaceX reused a Gargantuan super heavy booster of the rocket, this one specifically being Booster 14. 29 of its 33 Raptor engines had flown before and all 33 of them performed by the book during the vehicle's ascent. The booster also carried out the first directional flip after hot staging and seemed to fare well during a steeper than normal reentry aimed at testing new return profiles. Due to this testing, SpaceX decided not to catch the booster and instead aimed to perform an experimental landing with different engine configurations. However, shortly after landing burn ignition, the vehicle exploded, so this was never carried out. The second stage of Starship, Ship 35, became the first of the upgraded Block II ships to complete a full ascent burn, but it lost attitude control shortly thereafter. As a result, the vehicle wasn't able to complete the in-flight relight of one of its Raptor engines, one of the few tests meant for the vehicle on this mission. One of those tests was also supposed to test the deployment of eight Starlink satellite simulators, but the door couldn't open, leaving that test incomplete as well. The ship's loss of attitude control additionally resulted in it burning up on reentry due to it not coming in at the right orientation. While this flight achieved several successes, it seems like SpaceX will need to work just a bit more on perfecting the version 2 ships. The fourth and final Starlink launch of the week happened on May 28th at 1330 UTC from Florida with a batch of Starlink V2 mini-satellites heading to low Earth orbit. The first stage for this mission was flying for a 19th time and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship just read the instructions. And after all those Starlinks this week, we also had two launches from China with the first one headed to an asteroid. A Changjiang 3BE lifted off on May 28th at 1731 UTC from Launch Complex 2 at the Shichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The rocket was carrying the Tianwen-2 mission to sample a near-Earth asteroid. In a departure from China's tradition to publicly cover its flagship programs, this launch was not streamed to the public and no pictures have been released of the spacecraft's integration before launch. There are however some bits of public information out there, so it's not a complete secret like some of the other programs in China. For example, we more or less know the flight plan and the timelines for the probe. Tianwen-2 is expected to fly to asteroid 469-219 Kamo'o'oleva and is supposed to enter orbit around it about a year from now. Kamo'o'oleva is a small near-Earth asteroid orbiting the Sun in an orbit very similar to that of Earth. Tianwen-2 will spend several months orbiting the asteroid, after which it will sample material from its surface and fly back to Earth. The samples, enclosed in an entry capsule, are expected to arrive on Earth in November of 2027. As for the main spacecraft, it will perform an avoidance maneuver and fly by Earth, after which it will head toward Komet 311P Pan Stars, arriving there in 2035. Also from China, we had the launch of a Changjiang-4B from the Zhou Chuan Satellite Launch Center. The rocket was carrying the Xi Jinping-26 satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit. The Xi Jinping satellites are a series of secretive Chinese satellites used to test new technologies and experiments in space. China sometimes reveals the purpose of these, such as Xi Jinping-25, which was an on-orbit refueling satellite mission. Going into next week, we'll have a few more Starlink launches, as well as the launch of a new Shepard with six people on board from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site. That launch could happen as soon as May 31, so we'll report back on that in next week's Space Traffic Report. The lab is also hoping to launch its seventh electron of the year, with the full-stream ahead mission from New Zealand. This mission was supposed to have happened by now, but bad weather delayed the launch. And out in space, the ice-based Hakudo-R lander Resilience is expected to make a lunar landing attempt on the Mara Fragoris region of the moon. That landing is currently planned for June 5th at 1924 UTC, so hopefully by next week's report, we won't also have a new crater on the moon. I'm Alicia Stigl for NSF, and that's your weekly Space Traffic Report. Now back to T-Minus Space. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Have you ever looked up at the sky and had a little existential crisis and wondered, "Huh, what if actually something falls from up there?" Yeah, feels great, doesn't it? It's becoming less science fiction-y and more science reality-y, and we've covered several instances of space debris landing here on Earth from Africa to Europe to Canada to across the United States. But yeah, when you really get down to it, what exactly are you supposed to do if—or maybe we should say, "Hmm, when you witness space debris landing here on our home planet?" Well, fear not. If you can suppress that existential fear a little longer. You know, so the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs has actually dropped a new brochure, and it's called, "When the Sky Falls." What to do if space debris lands in your territory? And yes, I promise you, this is a real thing. It's a PDF. It's legit. I've read it. I just want you to imagine you're sipping your morning coffee and boom, hopefully not too much boom, but maybe far away, safe distance boom, your backyard suddenly features a surprise guest for orbit. Seriously, do you call 911 or your local emergency equivalent wherever you are? Do you wait for it to cool down and maybe try to sell it on eBay? Or maybe start charging tourists? Not so fast. You know, so it says there's actually a protocol here. And this new guide walks you through it step by step. So step one, remember your hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and don't panic. A lot easier said than done when there's a boom in your backyard. But anyway, Enosa says, "Start by first identifying the object." Good luck with that. But anyway, step two, then you alert your national authorities that no doubt you have on speed dial, right? Three, notify the United Nations. Because you definitely know how to notify the United Nations, but okay, that's step three, you notify the United Nations. When you figure out how to do that, I'm sure they definitely want to know what's going on. Step four, this is really important. If you only remember one thing, do not touch it. Maybe this should have been better placed at step one. Seriously, radiation, propellant, international law, take your pick. Step five, the launching country might be responsible for damages. Well, you would hope so, right? Well, there's actually very little protocol in place right now for applying for reimbursement and damages. So good luck if it's anyone other than your own home nation that made that boom in your backyard. Anyway, so next time, SpaceJunk knocks on your door again, hopefully from a safe distance. Remember you have a cosmic brochure ready to walk you through what to do next. We've included the link for you so you can bookmark it on your web browser just in case. That's it for T-Minus for May 30th, 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 our 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're privileged that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine 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 how at N2K.com. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher, and I am your host, Marie Varmazis. Thanks for listening. Happy 50th birthday, ESA. Have a great weekend. [MUSIC] T-minus. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]
