Today is July 11th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. Chinese scientists have released a series of findings from samples collected by the Chang'e-6 mission. Cislinder Technologies has received an investment from Colorado One Fund, Intuitive Machines is partnering with Spaceforge on a new vehicle. The European Space Agency has established its first optical communication link with a spacecraft in deep space. The UK plans to invest $191 million in satellite operator UTELSAT. [Music] And we're back to our regular Friday update from our partners at nasaspaceflight.com. They'll be bringing us the SpaceTraffic report, rounding up the launch news from the last week, and looking ahead at what's scheduled over the next seven days. [Music] Happy Friday everybody, thank you for joining me today. Let's dive into today's Intel briefing, shall we? And we're kicking off with news from Europe, where the continent looks like it's making waves and building up its sovereign capabilities. The UK has joined France and others in announcing its intention to invest in UTELSAT. Britain plans to invest 163.3 million euros, which is about 191 million US dollars, in the satellite operator UTELSAT, in a bid to help the company compete against Starlink. The French government is poised to become the largest shareholder in UTELSAT later this year, with the state shareholding agency injecting 750 million euros, and bringing its stake in the satellite operator to 29.65%, but who's counting, right? With its new investment, Britain will maintain its 10.89% stake in UTELSAT. And the deal could also open the door to Britain's involvement in the European Union's IRIS-squared satellite constellation project, for which UTELSAT is one of the main contractors. It's not the only move that Europe is making away from its reliance on the United States. Launch facilities in the Nordic regions are looking to start operations this year. Andreas Kabilius, who is the European Commissioner for Defense and Space, told Reuters that "we've lost in competition to, let's say, Elon Musk, and definitely we need to have our own autonomous launching possibilities. That's why the development of launching possibilities on the European continent, both in Sweden and Norway, is very important." And the European Space Agency marked a historical milestone earlier this week by establishing its first optical communication link with a spacecraft in deep space. And the link was made with NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications, or DSOC experiment, aboard its Psyche mission, currently at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units, which is around 165 million miles. This was the first of four planned links scheduled this summer. The transmission started in a newly transformed observatory in Greece, which is now one of two high-precision optical ground stations. From the Creeonetti Observatory, which is located near Athens, a powerful laser beacon was directed towards NASA's Psyche spacecraft. And though it carries no data, the beacon is designed to be so precisely targeted that the DSOC experiment on board Psyche can lock onto it and send a return signal back to Earth. That return signal is then captured by the Helmos Observatory, which is situated 37 kilometers away on a neighboring mountain peak. The successful demonstration lays the groundwork for ESA's proposed ASSIGN program, which stands for Advancing Solar System Internet and Ground, to be presented at the ESA Council meeting at ministerial level in November. And moving on from news from Europe now, Intuitive Machines is partnering with ISAM Company Spaceforge on a new vehicle. Intuitive Machines is using funding from the Texas Space Commission's Space Exploration and Research Fund to design and prototype a reentry vehicle. Intuitive Machines says the spacecraft will be tailored to meet real-world commercial use cases that support Texas economic development, job creation, and foster progressive space policies that encourage innovation and commercial space leadership. Spaceforge joins bio-manufacturing leader Rodeum Scientific, which is America's first commercial space biotech company, as part of a growing coalition of advanced manufacturers working directly with Intuitive Machines to define and inform its Earth reentry vehicle design. The Phase 1 grant supporting Intuitive Machines' Earth reentry program will culminate with a full-scale ground mock-up tailored to real payloads and use cases in early 2026. CIS Lunar Technologies has received an investment from Colorado One Fund, and the Colorado One Fund is the venture capital arm of One Funds and is dedicated to accelerating critical technologies. CIS Lunar Industries is developing in-space advanced power processing and resource utilization, the Colorado-based company says the investment from Colorado One Fund will accelerate CIS Lunar's technology development, expand its engineering team, and support key demonstration missions with government and commercial partners. And for our last story today, we're heading over to China, a series of research findings by Chinese scientists on the samples collected by the Chang'e 6 mission from the Moon's far side, have unveiled volcanic activity, an ancient magnetic field, water content, and geochemical characteristics of the Moon mantle, all shedding the first light on the evolutionary history of the Moon's dark side. Chang'e 6 collected and returned 1,935.3 grams of lunar far side samples. The findings were all shared in the latest issue of Nature, and we encourage you to follow the link in our show notes to find out more all about them. [Music] And speaking of those show notes, let's bring in NTK Senior Producer Alice Garuse to talk us through the other stories featured in there today. Alice, what have you got for us? Happy Friday, Maria. We've included four additional links today in the selected reading section. The first two are reports. We've got Space Capital's Q2 Insights, which we'll be speaking to Chad Anderson about in the next few weeks. And the other one is a GAO report on ISAM. Then there's an announcement from Rocket Lab on their neutron landing platform, and the final link is the latest update on NASA's Roman Space Telescope. And in addition to the show notes that you can find on the podcast platform that you're listening to us on, where else can folks find these stories? We always include links to the original sources of all the stories we mentioned throughout the show on our website, space.ntuk.com. Each episode has its own page, and you can find the selected reading section if you scroll down through the notes. 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 Hannah Ashford talking about the Carmen Project Foundation. Check it out while you're out and about this weekend. You do not want to miss it. [music] Next up, I'm going to hand you over to our partners now, over at nasaspaceflight.com for our weekly Space Traffic Report. [music] I'm Ryan Caden for NSF, and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for T-minus Space. This was a rather quiet week for launches, with only a single Starlink launch in the last week. Lift-off took place on July 8th at 0821 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The mission was carrying 28 Starlink V2 mini-satellites into low Earth orbit. With this mission, the number of Starlink satellites that SpaceX has launched into orbit now rises to 9,165. Of these, 1,197 have re-entered Earth's atmosphere, and 7,028 have moved into their operational orbits. Despite having just one single launch, in space we had a space station arrival and another space station departure. After launching from Kazakhstan last week on July 3rd at 1932 UTC, the Progress MS-31 spacecraft docked to the Poisk module at the International Space Station on July 5th at 2125 UTC. The spacecraft, loaded with three tonnes of fuel, water, hardware and experiments, will now remain docked to the station for about six months. After having spent eight months at the Tiangong Space Station, the Tiangio 8 cargo spacecraft undocked from the aft docking port of the Tiangio core module on July 8th at 0709 UTC. Filled with several tonnes of waste, the spacecraft was disposed of and de-orbited later the same day at 2246 UTC. This was a rather quiet week for launches, with only a single Starlink launch during the last week. The mission was carrying 28 Starlink V2 mini-satellites into low Earth orbit, bringing the number of Starlink satellites that SpaceX has launched into orbit to 9165. Despite having just one single launch, in space we had one space station arrival and another space station departure. After launching from Kazakhstan last week, two days later, the Progress MS-31 spacecraft docked to the Poisk module on the International Space Station. The spacecraft, loaded with three tonnes of fuel, water, hardware and experiments, will now remain docked to the station for about six months. After having spent eight months at the Tiangong Space Station, the Tiangio 8 cargo spacecraft undocked from the aft docking port of the Tiangio module on July 8th at 0709 UTC. Filled with several tonnes of waste, the spacecraft was disposed of and de-orbited later the same day. That undocking was to open up a port to allow you for the Tiangio 9 cargo spacecraft, which is set to launch next week. That launch is currently looking like it may happen on July 14th at around 2040 UTC. Next week we'll also have a couple of Starlink launches from Vandenberg. We're also expecting a pair of custom emissions, riding on two different Falcon 9 launches from Florida. One of the launches is, hopefully, still not confirmed, but it may be carrying the Israeli communications satellite called DERAU-1 into geosynchronous transfer orbit. The other customer launch will be for none other than a Starlink competitor, Amazon's Project Kuiper. As always, you can expect NSF to be carrying these launches live on our channel and also after the fact in our next Space Traffic Report. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australian launch company Gilmore Space will try to finally launch its Aeris rocket next week. The next launch opportunity will hopefully take place as soon as July 15th at 2130 UTC. Up next, the Axion 4 crew is gearing up for its return to Earth. Crew Dragon Grace and its crew of four are set to depart the International Space Station as early as July 14th at 1105 UTC. Splashdown off the coast of California could happen approximately 22 hours after that, depending on orbital mechanics. These dates and times are as ever very fluid, so to stay on top of each and every one of them, don't forget to check out the next Space Flight website and app to not miss any of these events. I've been Ryan Kate and for NSF and that's your weekly Space Traffic Report. Now back to Team Under Space. [Music] We'll be right back. [Music] Peace and love everybody. Peace and love and peace and love to all those guys who are shooting peace and love to the moon. Thank you in the spaceship up in the sky, out there. [Music] Welcome back. Lots of fans of the Beatles out in the world. Many might say they love the Beatles to the moon and back. But do you really? I mean, really, really? Well, Ringo Starr is right there with you friends, sending back his own love to the moon and back. You might not know this, but every year on Ringo's birthday, he sends out a message of peace and love. And for his 85th birthday, just this past July 7th, can you believe he's 85 already? Wow. He decided that the message he has needs to go lunar. With help from Intuitive Machines and Goonhilly Earth Station in the UK, Ringo's voice was beamed to the moon using the same infrastructure that supports commercial lunar missions. And here is that message. I'm sending his love to the moon and back. Are you ready? Is there any time? Three, two, one. Peace and love. And because I know you're wondering, here's how that message actually worked. Goonhilly transmitted the audio using his GHY6 radio dish. The message then bounced off the moon's surface, and the second antenna caught the signal on its return trip. It's a round-trip message of peace across nearly a half a million miles of space. And while this signal is, of course, just symbolic, the tech behind it is indeed the same system that Intuitive Machines uses for real-time data transmission on its lunar missions. Isn't it nice how commercial lunar columns are becoming as reliable as they are creative? So if you are wondering what kind of birthday wish you might send when you're a beetle in the space age, in case you ever dream about something like that, well, apparently you would send one that echoes off the moon. Peace and love indeed. Here's hoping that Earth gets the message. I'd like to be under the sea in an octopus's garden in the shade. [Music] And that's T-Minus, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. We would love to know what you think of our podcast, always. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our show, please share our rating and review in your podcast app. You could also fill out the survey in our show notes, or even just send us an email. It's a space at N2K.com. We love to hear from you. We're proud 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 helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn, and stay informed. As the next is for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, the technology, and the ideas, shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how at N2K.com. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Tre Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
