[MUSIC] Today is September 3rd, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] Loft Orbital Federal has been awarded a task order from NASA under the agency's Flight Opportunities Program. MSBAI has secured a direct-to-phase two-sibir contract to mature its hybrid intelligence co-pilot for space domain awareness called Orbit Guard. General Atomic's electromagnetic systems and Kepler communications have successfully demonstrated bi-directional air-to-space optical communications between an aircraft and a satellite. Interlune has been awarded up to $4.84 million from the Texas Space Commission to develop and test highly specialized simulants of moon regolith. U.S. President Donald Trump officially announced the move of Space Command headquarters to Alabama. [MUSIC] Happy Wednesday, everybody. Thank you for joining me. You know it's been a ping-pong game since coming into existence, and after the back and forth between the state of Colorado and Alabama, U.S. Space Command will now apparently finally settle at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. Now for a bit of context, let's dive into Space Command, or SpaceCom. It was launched during Trump's first term as president in 2019 and has its current headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is a separate body from the U.S. Military Space Force and handles U.S. military operations outside the Earth's atmosphere. Its primary mission is to protect and defend the space domain, missions such as safeguarding U.S. satellites from external threats. About 1,700 personnel work at Space Command, and it employs joint forces from the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force to carry out its missions. The U.S. Space Command's commander reports to the Secretary of Defense, who is currently Pete Hegzef, who reports to the president. And speaking of the president, here were his remarks at the announcement of this move. In my first term, we created and I created a thing called Space Force, so important. We were losing the race in space very badly to China and to Russia, and now we're far and away, number one in space, and reestablish SpaceCom with a mission to protect American space assets and detect any threat to our homeland. We initially selected Huntsville for the SpaceCom headquarters, yet those plans were wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration. And as you know, they moved them to a different locale, and today we're moving forward with what we want to do and the place that we want to have this, and this will be there for hopefully hundreds of years. That's where it's going to be. So it was initially intended to move to Alabama, but under the former administration, SpaceCom established itself in Colorado Springs, Colorado. One of the reasons for the move was due to a GAO report finding, which stated that there were, quote, "significant shortfalls in the Air Force's selection process for the headquarters." Now, Colorado had already served as the temporary headquarters of the command, so it was announced as the permanent location under former President Biden. And even this year, the Pentagon Inspector General released a report acknowledging the risks to readiness inherent to moving the HQ from its provisional location to Huntsville, Alabama. However, he said it would save costs of about $426 million because of the lower personnel and construction costs in Huntsville. That said, it has not been announced when the new headquarters will be constructed and all the personnel moved, but Alabama's elected officials have claimed that the new location could be ready in less than 18 months. I guess we will see. Moving on now, Interloon has been awarded up to $4.84 million in a grant from the Texas Space Commission to develop and test highly specialized simulants of Moon Regolith. Interloon will use the grant funds, along with internal investment, to create a Lunar Regolith Simulant Center of Excellence near NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The grant comes from the Texas Space Commission's Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund, which provides grants to businesses, nonprofits, and governmental entities involved in space exploration research or aeronautics. The funds granted will support workforce development in Texas by expanding interloon operations and creating additional infrastructure to strengthen the state's aerospace economy. Interloon intends to provide internship opportunities once the center has been established. General Atomic's electromagnetic systems, known as GA EMS, and Kepler Communications, have successfully demonstrated bidirectional air-to-space optical communications between the GA EMS optical communication terminal mounted on an aircraft and a space development agency Tronch Zero Compatible Kepler satellite in low Earth orbit. The company say that the demonstration marks a milestone in advancing SDA's proliferated warfighter space architecture, providing the ability to establish secure, high data rate connectivity between airborne and space-based assets in challenging operational environments. Micro-surgeon Bot, Incorporated, also known as MSBAI, has secured a direct-to-phase to-siver contractor, Small Business Innovation Research Contract, to mature its hybrid intelligence co-pilot for space domain awareness called the Orbit Guard. And the opportunity originated from the Department of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office and was competitively selected by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and has been executed by the Air Force Digital Transformation Office. The contract is valued at $1.2 million over 18 months and the award will propel Orbit Guard towards operational deployment. MSBAI says its platform detects anomalous satellite behaviors in near real-time and identifies maneuvers with exceptional precision. Loft Orbital Federal has been awarded a task order from NASA under the agency's Flight Opportunities Program. This task order is for the integration launch and on-orbit operations of a mission supporting the fault-tolerant RISC-V flight computer with co-processor support project. The task order is under the fourth NASA Flight Opportunities Indefinite Delivery and Definite Quantity Contract, which aims to accelerate the testing and maturation of innovative space technologies by providing commercial flight and payload integration services for NASA and other agency missions. As a named recipient on this five-year, up to $45 million IDIQ, Loft Federal will deliver comprehensive mission support, including payload accommodation, licensing, satellite integration, launch campaign management, and on-orbit operations for a range of NASA technology demonstration payloads. And that wraps up today's top five stories in the space industry for you. N2K senior producer Alice Carruth joins me now with more on the other stories that we are taking a look at. Alice? We've added three additional links in the selected reading section of today's show notes. One is an update on the Metop-SGA1 satellite that was recently launched, and the other two are on new appointments. Former NASA astronaut-turned-administrator Pam Melroy has been appointed to Venus' Board of Directors, and a new associate administrator of NASA has been announced. NASA veteran Amit Kastriya has been appointed by associate administrator Sean Duffy. Amit was most recently the deputy in charge of the Moon to Mars program in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA's headquarters in Washington. You know, that is interesting because NASA says his appointment puts America's return to the Moon through Artemis at the very core of the agency. And a reminder that all of those show notes also include links to the original sources of all of the stories that we've mentioned throughout the show. And they can also be found on our website, which is space.n2k.com. AT-MINUSCREW, if you find this podcast useful, could you do us a favor and share a five-star rating and short review in your favorite podcast app? Thank you so much for considering it because, you know, it would help other space professionals like you to find our show and join the T-Minus crew. So if you do take a minute, we really, really appreciate it. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Andy Saunders, the best-selling British author, science writer, and one of the world's foremost experts of NASA digital restoration, is coming out with a new book that I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on. For background, in 2022, Saunders' book, "Apollower Remastered," of stunningly remastered images from the Apollo missions, gave the world a brand new view and appreciation of the people, the equipment, and those lunar views as seen by the moonwalkers in incredible, vivid, clear detail, nothing grainy or under or overexposed. It is no surprise at all that Saunders' book won a number of awards for excellence in photography, book of the year, you name it. And if you happen to catch the moonwalkers show with Tom Hanks, that featured a lot of the imagery that Saunders himself worked on. "Apollower Remastered" is one of those books that I have returned to many times on my bookshelf, and it has truly given me that you are there feeling of being on the moon. It is really uncanny. You would think those pictures were just taken with a 4K ultra-high-def camera, and not in the '60s and '70s, with their film photography of the era as advanced as it was at the time. But that is how painstakingly remastered the images are, and for my fellow photo nerds, yes, he details his process in the book for you as well. So it was with immense happiness that I read the headline that Andy Saunders has released a prequel to "Apollower Remastered" called "Gemini and Mercury Remastered." In an interview with the website CollectSpace.com, he answered the question that I think a bunch of us might be asking, wait a second, shouldn't it be called "Mercury and Gemini Remastered?" Given that Mercury was first. Well, quite simply says Saunders, there's a lot more imagery from "Gemini." And so the book is overwhelmingly from "Project Gemini" with only a little of Mercury, so it gets weighted more in the title. OK, fair enough. And it makes me happy to see that this book is already the number one bestseller in astrophotography on Amazon at the moment, as it should be. I cannot wait to get my hands on it and immerse myself with the photos of those incredible missions, just as I did with "Apollower Remastered." And I hope you will as well. [MUSIC PLAYING] And that's T-minus, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. What do you think about T-minus Space Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. And thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. 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 a nexus 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 Caruth. 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 Kilpie is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. [MUSIC PLAYING] T-minus. [MUSIC PLAYING]
