[MUSIC PLAYING] Today is September 9th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-Minus. [MUSIC PLAYING] T-Minus. 22nd to LOS T-Dress. Open aboard. [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] Five. China has launched a remote sensing satellite from the One Chang spacecraft launch site. Four. MessyMS secured 3.3 million pounds in seed funding, and are around jointly led by the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund. Three. MaxArt partner with Enderill to supply the foundational geospatial intelligence that will underpin a next generation mixed reality command and control system for the US Army. Two. Capgemini, TALUS, and TALUS-Alenia space have been selected by CNES to lead an innovative demonstration of 5G-directed device connectivity. One. NOAA's Office of Space Commerce has announced new solicitations for a commercial conjunction assessment screening services pilot program. [MUSIC PLAYING] Lift off. [MUSIC PLAYING] Our guest today is Kevin Hell, president and CEO of Empower Technology. We're going to be discussing a new investment in Empower by Lockheed Martin Ventures. Stick around to find out more about solar panels in space. [MUSIC PLAYING] Happy Tuesday, everybody. Thank you for joining me. Let's dive into today's Intel Briefing. And we are kicking off with an update on the US Traffic Coordination System for Space Program, better known as TRAX. NOAA's Office of Space Commerce, also known as OSC, is developing the TRAX program to provide basic space situational awareness data and services to civil and private space operators in support of space flight safety. And as TRAX approaches production release, OSC has announced new solicitations for a commercial conjunction assessment screening services pilot, known as CAS. These solicitations represent an important first step towards improving conjunction analysis quality, which is a core part of the mission that Space Policy Directive 3 assigned the Department of Commerce, and is another example of TRAX leveraging the commercial space situational awareness industry's innovative capabilities. And by evaluating commercial CAS outputs and independent data quality assessments, TRAX will work to close capability gaps in today's approach to space traffic coordination, strengthening the safety of space operations worldwide. OSC is selecting up to five vendors to provide data from their CAS to support evaluation activities, and the CAS provider data will identify suitable services to explore further for integration into the TRAX operational system. And additionally, OSC will select one provider to manage the data flow required for this evaluation and perform an independent evaluation of the quality of the CAS provider's products. More details can be found about all of that by following the link in our show notes. And we need to note that this new program is released on the heels of rumors that US President Donald Trump's administration has pulled back about 40% of the annual budget for OSC. Employees at the OSC reportedly received notification from the Office of Management and Budget reducing the annual budget from $65 million in fiscal year 2025 to $37 million. The money that the office had already spent through July. That leaves a funding shortfall until the start of the new fiscal year in October. And we hope it does not impact the rollout of TRAX in the coming months. Let's move on over to Europe now. A consortium led by Capgemini, TELUS and TELUS Alenia Space have been selected by the French space agency CNES to lead an innovative demonstration of 5G-directed device connectivity. The demonstration is part of a government-packed call for project under the France 2030 program. The project named "You Deserve 5G" will demonstrate the feasibility of direct communications between satellites and mobile devices or fixed terminals. A demonstrator satellite will be placed in low-earth orbit to test interoperability between terrestrial and non-terrestrial 5G networks. The project will use a set of scenarios to evaluate how smoothly devices can switch between satellite and terrestrial 5G coverage. The demonstration is a crucial step towards truly global, seamless and uninterrupted connectivity. Capgemini will be responsible for radio access solutions and 4G 5G core networks. For its part, TELUS will assess the feasibility of a 5G D2D terminal with a directional antenna operating in the future C-band. Additional support will come from ARAANGE, which will contribute its operator expertise and host the demonstration at its Bersony facility in France, and SES is in charge of studying the implementation of D2D services, while Qualcomm will supply a 5G NTN compatible test mobile terminal, and Loft Orbital will be responsible for the platform, assembly integration testing, launch reservation, and satellite operations for the demonstration phase. Maxar has announced a strategic partnership with Anderil to supply the foundational geospatial intelligence that will underpin a next-generation mixed reality command and control system, or C-2, for the US Army. The C-2 system will power the Soldier-Born Mission Command Architecture program, which will provide US warfighters with a mixed reality capability that overlays real-time battlefield intelligence directly into a soldier's field of view, kind of like a video game heads-up display sounds like. Advanced headsets will display digital information on top of their real-world view during live combat missions and training, and by integrating Maxar's geospatial intelligence into Anderil's Lattice AI-powered software, the system will give soldiers accurate real-time awareness of terrain and threats. Maxar and Anderil say that they're turning data into actionable insight that strengthens survivability and accelerates decision-making in contested environments. It is certainly a sci-fi turned science reality system that blends space data, AI, and soldier-ready battlefield tech. Sky News is reporting that Messium, a British satellite imaging startup, has secured 3.3 million pounds in seed funding in a round jointly led by the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund. Messium uses hyperspectral satellite imaging and AI analytics to improve the efficiency of farmers' crop management by detecting how much nitrogen is present in each part of a field. The funding is also reportedly backed by the UK Space Agency, and congratulations to Messium. And China launched a remote-sensing satellite from the Wanchang spacecraft launch site in the southern island province of Hainan earlier today, a modified Long March 7 rocket carrying the Yalgan-45 satellite, blasted off at 10 a.m. local time and sent it into the preset orbit. Chinese media say that the satellite will mainly be used for scientific experiments, land resource surveys, crop yield estimates, and for disaster prevention and mitigation. That wraps up today's Intel Briefing for you. Stay with me to find out how much a Star Wars fan spent on buying Darth Vader's lightsaber from the Empire Strikes Back and the return of the Jedi. But before we get into that very important news, and my chat with Kevin Hell from Empower, producer Alice Carruth joins me now with an update on the other stories that we are watching today. Alice, what do you have? Maria, we've added one additional link in today's Selected Reading section of our show notes. It covers the announcement that the Space Development Agency has selected Dr. Garpart Hats and who is the acting director of the SDA. You can read about more about that and all the other stories mentioned in the show by following the links that are available on the podcast platform that you listen to us on or on our website, space.ntuk.com. Hi, T-Minus Crew, if you are just joining us, welcome, and be sure to follow T-Minus Face Daily in your favorite podcast app. Also, if you could do us a favor, share the intel with your friends and co-workers. A growing audience is the most important thing for us, and we would love your help as part of the T-Minus Crew. If you find our show useful, please share it to other professionals like you can find T-Minus. Thank you so much, everybody. It really means a lot to me. [music] Today's guest is Kevin Hell, president and CEO of Empower Technology. Kevin started by telling me more about Empower. We are a leader in advanced solar technology for space. We have a product called Dragon Scales, and essentially it's a very unique technology. It's silicon-based. It's a flexible, resilient, lightweight solution for solar power in space, and it really addresses a huge need in the industry right now, which is traditional solar solutions for space are both too expensive and incredibly supply constrained based on gallium arsenide. Gallium is incredibly limited right now, and 98% of it comes from China and is really at risk. One of the things that's been driving, or has been historically driving gallium arsenide, is the fact that it has very high efficiency relative to silicon. In fact, silicon was the initial technology used in space for solar rays, and then gallium arsenide was developed to increase the efficiency so you didn't need as long of an array. That was particularly important when launch vehicle costs were very high and when the penalty for weight was extremely high. However, launch costs have come down. The penalty for weight has come down, and even though silicon has lower efficiency, given the amount of power requirements for these new missions, silicon has found its way back to the future. It's now something that we consider for designs and works out quite well. It's the only way that you're going to meet the requirements for many of these large scale missions. However, in addition to that, one of the great things about DragonScales is that we can take advancements in the silicon photovoltaic world that's primarily driven by the terrestrial market, and take those increases in efficiency and essentially drag and drop them into our DragonScales architecture. We're able to leverage a lot of very expensive investments that the terrestrial market makes to increase the efficiency for your rooftop or for any other solar application. Some of the new technologies that are coming down the pike are heterojunction cells, top-count cells, as well as perovskites and silicon. What these new technologies do is really close the efficiency gap relative to gallium arsenide. One of the penalties of silicon is that, again, you need a slightly longer array. That array can weigh a little bit more. But with these new technologies, that efficiency gap, we expect that to close. In fact, perovskites and silicon promise to get very, very close to the efficiency of gallium arsenide. When that happens, there really is no penalty at all for silicon. You got a cost that is 5 to 10x less, and you have unlimited amounts of supply. That's where we see it going over the long-term through our roadmap. I was going to say the supply chain is you take that out of the equation also. It's never out of the equation, but it's less of a concern, certainly. Those are all very, very important considerations there. Closing that gap. We're just glad that billions of dollars are being poured into the R&D associated with the increasing efficiency for your terrestrial rooftop applications, given their scale. Then that flows down to us, and we can now use that for space and do the things that we need to make. It's particularly suited for space. Honestly, what a great place to be, especially with such a great innovation. Very enviable, honestly. Congratulations on a recent announcement about a new investment in your company by Lockheed Martin Ventures. This was announced in late August. Would you mind telling me a bit about that? Yeah, sure. Yeah, and it builds on two recent funding announcements we've had. The first was in May where we announced the Series B funding, $21 million in Series B, led by Razor's Edge and Shield Capital. Then more recently, we just announced an additional investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures, which joins us as a strategic investor. That brings the total Series B funding to over $24 million, which is really exciting. This is really going to allow us to scale our high volume production of Dragon Scales and also expand our reach into national security missions as well, since obviously both Lockheed Martin Ventures as well as Razor's Edge and Shield Capital are focused on that area. Absolutely. I was going to ask about that partnership with Lockheed Martin Ventures, what they bring, obviously financial support, but as a partner to you all, what kind of the relationships and what they bring to you, maybe in the softer side of things, so to speak. Lockheed Martin is one of the largest space and defense contractors in the world. Their involvement brings mission expertise, defense sector, reach and credibility. It's really a very powerful signal. It validates Dragon Scales as the technology that's needed for this next generation of space missions that I was talking about. It also creates opportunities for collaboration on critical US defense and national security missions that need resilient, rapidly deployable power solutions. As I mentioned, there's really a constraint in the market right now around solar power. We can come to the table on these kind of missions, particularly on the US defense side and help and provide solar power solutions. It also helps accelerate our growth into areas like responsive launch and proliferated LEO constellations, which is really a huge area right now. Huge. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, when you speak about scaling up, what does that look like for you all? Is that new facilities just being able to be producing more? Sure, yeah. No, it's a really exciting time for us. As I talked about last time, we have a manufacturing partner in upstate New York, Universal Instruments. And we have just started to produce off of our high-volume production line in New York. It has a two megawatt annual capacity, which is more, by the way, than the combined global output of the three main suppliers to space combined. So just give me an idea. And we are producing flight modules out of that facility now on this new line. It's very exciting for us. And so this additional funding is going to help us continue to expand our production with Universal Instruments. That's fantastic. Anything else that you want to add about this announcement or just in general, what you all are sort of up to now and looking to do in the future? Well, you know, the space market continues to grow. And we've got Leo constellations for communications. You've got, as I've talked about, the defense and intelligence missions. You have space mobility, orbit raising services, space habitats, lunar and Mars missions, AI and in-space computing. And then, of course, people are talking about space-based power generation and beaming. All of these things require power. And they require orders of magnitude more power than has ever been done in the past. And they need to be at a price point that is an order of magnitude or more or less than has ever been done in the past. And we are at that. We are looking to be that supplier to help enable all of these different missions and to make it actually work. And so we've had now over 15 years of heritage and orbit. We're really unique in the market in the sense that we're the only ones that have this combination of space heritage. 15 years already on orbit. We have a pipeline over a half a billion dollars of active sales engagements. There's really, you know, a little competition out there for what these new missions require. The legacy players are expensive, as I mentioned, very supply constrained. Other silicon suppliers are emerging as well, but they're years behind us and they don't really have yet scalable production that's working now like we do. And so we're really in a unique position and we're looking to basically be the major supplier for this next space 2.0 generation of missions. [Music] We'll be right back. Welcome back. [Music] If you have a couple million bucks burning a hole in your pocket and an abiding love of Star Wars, you might really relate to this headline. Because last Thursday, somebody spent 3.6 million US dollars at an auction by one of the actual lightsabers used by Darth Vader, both the actor and the stunt performer, in both Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. 3.6 million dollars for an on-screen prop. Now, I do not have that kind of spare change, but the devotion to a lifelong fandom as you might have gathered from yesterday's show, yes, I do get that. If I did have that kind of money, though, I'd probably be asking myself, "What else is money for than to buy the actual red, glowy, boom, boom lightsaber seen on screen that did strike down the mighty Obi-Wan Kenobi and slice up the arm of Luke Skywalker?" I mean, that's just respecting our geek history after all. [Scream] But yes, the lightsaber is ultimately a screen prop. It doesn't actually do the cool, glowy, slicey thing. Sorry to disappoint, I know. That part you do need to use your imagination for until someone figures out the tech. And the screen prop itself is a fascinating bit of movie magic and prop-making ingenuity. It was made from a 1950s camera flash-ball attachment and, I quote, "expertly modified by the production team into a lightsaber," according to the prop store auction house description. And if you want an excruciatingly, almost worryingly detailed account about what went into this prop's build, rest assured that the contributors to the Star Wars fandom wiki have you more than covered with paragraphs of detail, and I will let you hunt that down yourself. In any case, congratulations to the lucky nerd who got their hands on this bit of film history. Best to stay anonymous with your winning, though, I can think of quite a few people. Bandim wiki contributors included, who are quite jealous. [Music] And that is 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. The link is in the show notes for you. 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. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. 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 Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester, with original music by Elliott 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. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
