Today is June 13, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. T-minus. Twenty seconds to L-O-N team risk. Go for the floor. Five. FAA closes the Starship Flight 8 mishap investigation. Four. BAE Systems and Hanwa Systems sign an international market MOU. Three. The EU clears SES's $3.1 billion bid for IntelSat. Two. NATO awards a seven-figure contract to Planet Labs. One. A new GAO report says to expect delays on the Space Force's next-gen OPIR satellite. Three. And as we do every Friday, we have our space traffic report from our partners at nasaspaceflight.com. What went up in the last week and what's going up soon? Well, we'll fill you in. Second half of the show, don't miss it. Happy Friday, everybody. Thanks for joining me. According to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or the GAO, the launch of the Space Force's first next-gen overhead persistent infrared, or OPIR, satellite will be delayed to no earlier than March 2026. Originally scheduled for late this year, the delay is tied to both technical development challenges and, quote, "a crowded 2025 launch manifest." This is one of many insights from a new GAO Weapon Systems Annual Assessment just published this week that takes a look at many projects in the Department of Defense timeline. Across the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force, the GAO says, and I quote, "The Department of Defense continues to struggle with delivering innovative technologies quickly and within budget." Taking a closer look at many Space Force projects in the pipeline, the GAO report confirms, despite earlier delays, that the OPIR satellite is still expected to be delivered in September 2025. But even if it does hold that delivery schedule, it will still need to wait for a slot in the launch queue, and that will also result in cost increases. A reminder that this program replaces the legacy space-based infrared system with a modern, more distributed missile warning architecture. It includes two satellites in geosynchronous orbit built by Lockheed Martin and two in polar orbit by Northrop Grimman. NATO selected Planet Labs for a new seven-figure contract to deliver daily monitoring and intelligence across key strategic areas. The exact amount was not disclosed. Planet will provide a platform that combines its broad area monitoring satellite data with AI and machine learning analytics. The system will support NATO's surveillance, early warning, and maritime domain awareness efforts. NATO plans to use broad area detection to identify anomalies across wider regions and to strengthen NATO's indications and warning capabilities. The approach aims to improve situational awareness and help decision-makers respond more quickly to emerging threats. Planet's involvement supports NATO's Smart Indications and Warning Broad Area Detection, or CINBAD, program. In a press release about this contract, NATO leaders say that this collaboration helps the Alliance to strengthen deterrence, manage complexity, and deliver real-time insight to its forces. It's official now. The European Commission is unconditionally approving the $3.1 billion SES acquisition of its rival, IntelSat. The deal had been technically pending antitrust approval before it could be officially official, but now Brussels has given its blessing, and the deal will go through. The Commission concluded that their transaction would not raise competition concerns in the European Economic Area, said the Commission in a press release. And that is the green light for these two Luxembourg-headquartered companies, joined forces and put some added competitive pressure on SpaceX's Starlink and, increasingly, Amazon's Project Kuiper. BAE systems and Hanwa systems have signed a memorandum of understanding to co-develop a multi-sensor satellite system aimed at international markets. The companies plan to combine BAE's ultra-wide-band RF sensors with Hanwa's expertise in synthetic aperture radar. The goal is for the companies to build an advanced ISR platform when that collects RF and SAR data, processes it on orbit with edge computing, and then delivers intelligence using machine learning. Leaders from both companies say the collaboration supports growing demand for space-based surveillance capabilities. The UK and South Korea see this as a strategic partnership that expands each country's role in the global space economy. In the announcement about this MOU, by the way, BAE also reaffirmed plans to launch its first satellite cluster called Azalea next year. That mission will support broader threat awareness from low-Earth orbit and reflects BAE's wider commitment to international space collaboration. And our last story is a brief FAA update about the SpaceX Starship Test Flight 8 mishap. Here's the update from the FAA in full. The FAA required investigation of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap is closed. There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property. The FAA oversaw and accepted the findings of the SpaceX-led investigation. The final mishap report cites the probable root cause for the loss of the Starship vehicle as a hardware failure in one of the Raptor engines that resulted in inadvertent, propellant mixing and ignition. SpaceX identified eight corrective actions to prevent a reoccurrence of the event. The FAA verified that SpaceX implemented corrective actions prior to the Starship Flight 9 mission. And there you have it. The mishap investigation for Flight 9 is still ongoing, and that needs to conclude before Starship Test Flight 10 is clear to fly. [Music] And that is our Friday Intel Briefing for you. Links to today's stories as well as further reading are all waiting for you in our show notes. Check them out on our website. Just head on over to space.ntuk.com. 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 Clay Mulery of AIAA talking about his vision for the organization. Check it out while you're recovering from a busy week at the IREC, or getting ready for a lovely Father's Day weekend of being celebrated in Pampered, I'm sure you don't want to miss it. [Music] Our partners at nasaspaceflight.com have our weekly space traffic report now on all the launches that were in the last week and those that will be in the coming week. [Music] I'm Alicia Segal for NSF and this is your weekly space traffic report for T-minus Space. Starting off the week, we had the launch of a Falcon 9 from Florida on June 7th at 454 UTC. The rocket was carrying the SXM-10 satellite for satellite radio company SiriusXM into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. This satellite adds on to the existing fleet of broadcasting satellites by SiriusXM and was the fourth launched on a Falcon 9 rocket. In a departure from usual missions by Falcon 9 to geosynchronous transfer orbits, or GTOs, this one included a de-orbit burn of the second stage after satellite deployment for a targeted re-entry and disposal over the Pacific Ocean. On past Falcon 9 missions to GTO, the rocket's second stage was left in the same transfer orbit as the payload due to the high energy of the orbit. But this mission in particular carried a rather heavy satellite. The SXM-10 is believed to be roughly 6.4 metric tons in mass at launch, which means Falcon 9 can't quite put it all the way to a standard GTO, an orbit where the highest point is at the altitude of geostationary orbit, roughly 36,000 kilometers above Earth. Instead, the highest point of the deployment orbit was just under 22,000 kilometers. This meant that the Falcon 9 second stage ended up in an orbit that was just low enough that it could still be de-orbited after deploying the satellite. And from a Falcon 9 from Florida, we now go to one from California launching on June 8th at 1420 UTC. This one was carrying a batch of 26 Starlink V2 mini satellites into low Earth orbit. The first state for this mission, B1088, was flying for a seventh time and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, of course I still love you. Bouncing back over to Florida, just a few days later there was another Falcon 9 launch on June 10th at 1305 UTC. This one was also a Starlink mission but carrying a mixed batch of Starlink V2 mini and Starlink direct-to-cell satellites. As usual, the first stage for this mission was flight-proven, flying for a twelfth time. It successfully returned to Earth, landing on the deck of Just Read the Instructions. And to take a quick pause from Falcon 9 rockets, we had the launch of an electron on a mission called the Mountain God Guards. Lift-off took place on June 11th at 1531 UTC from Rocket Lab's own Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. For this mission, Electron was carrying the QPS SAR-11 satellite into low Earth orbit. This was the fourth launch of a QPS SAR satellite by Rocket Lab for the Japanese Earth Observation Company iQPS. These satellites are part of a constellation that use large deployable X-band antennas to perform regular synthetic aperture radar imaging of the Earth. And we had even more launch activity squeezing in right at the end of the week with another Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg carrying more Starlink V2 mini satellites. The first stage for this mission, B-1081, was flying for a fifteenth time, becoming the fifteenth booster to reach this milestone. Kind of funny when you think about it, right? Fifteen, fifteens. And the fifth and final Falcon 9 of the week happened not long after from the other coast of the United States, carrying another batch of Starlink V2 mini and Starlink direct-to-cell satellites into orbit. The first stage for this mission, B-1078, was flying for a twenty-first time and successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, a shortfall of Gravitas. Going into next week, we of course expect more Starlink launches. No surprise there. We're also hoping to see whether SpaceX can finally launch the Axiom 4 mission to the ISS. Next week, we also have an Atlas V by United Launch Alliance carrying the second batch of operational Kuiper satellites for Amazon. That launch is currently targeted for no earlier than June 16th at 1725 UTC, but we'll see if the Florida afternoon weather allows it to launch on time. Next week, we may also have a potential Angara in its most powerful configuration launching from Plisetsk in Russia, and there may also be a launcher 2 from China sneaking into the schedule as well. As usual, for real-time updates, check out Neckspaceflight.com or download the app on your phone where you can get all kinds of launch alerts and even notifications about Starship testing. There may be some of that happening soon too. I'm Alicia Segal for NSF, and that's your Weekly Space Traffic Report. Now back to T-Minus Space. [Music] We'll be right back. [Music] And that's it for T-Minus for June 13th, 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'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, only can your teams smarter. Learn how at N2K.com. 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 as our publisher, and I'm your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
