At the Apex of spacecraft manufacturing expansion.

Today is September 15th, 2025. I'm Alice Carruth and this is T-minus. A SpaceX 4-9 rocket launched the North at Grumman CRS-23 Cygnus XL spacecraft to the International Space Station. Impulse Space has signed a multi-launch agreement with French in-space services company Infinite Orbits. SCS and K-Labs are partnering to test laser communication technology. European aerospace groups Leonardo, TALIS and Airbus are reportedly looking to sign an initial agreement to combine their satellite businesses as early as this year. Spacecraft manufacturer Apex has closed a $200 million series D funding round. Our guest today is Patrick O'Neill, Public Affairs and Outreach Lead at the International Space Station US National Lab. Patrick will be bringing us the monthly update on what's going on on the ISS, including what just launched over the weekend. Also, are you missing out on World Space Business Week in Paris? Us too, but our friends at SpaceWatch Global will be bringing us the latest from the conference. So stay with us for more on that after today's headlines. [Music] Happy Monday everyone. Maria is out sick today, but hopefully she'll be back on her feet quickly. Let's dive into today's intelligence briefing, shall we? Spacecraft manufacturer Apex has closed a $200 million series D funding round. And as if that number isn't impressive enough, the raise brings the company's valuation to over $1 billion. So for those not keeping up, who are Apex? They are a spacecraft manufacturer of mass-produced configurable satellite bus platforms. They have proven hardware in orbit and say they can mass-produce constellations for communications, sensing and national security. Apex says it plans to use the funds to expand its production capability. It already controls parts of its supply chain, including avionics, power systems and more. And the company recently completed the acquisition of Phase 4 Hall Effect Thrust to Technology, allowing Apex to accelerate in-house propulsion system production and de-risk a key bus subsystem. Apex says it plans to use the new funds to expand its production capability. Additionally, Apex has signed a lease to more than double its Los Angeles-based Factory 1 footprint, adding a new 55,000 square foot facility adjacent to its existing site in Plyovista. That brings its total spacecraft production space to over 100,000 square feet and provides room for research and development, vertical integration of strategic components and expand mission services and payload integration. The company expects to expand into the new building next year. We think we'll be hearing more from Apex in the near future. Moving on. European Aerospace Groups Leonardo, TALUS and Airbus are reportedly looking to sign an initial agreement to combine their satellite businesses as early as this year. Under Project Bromo - I love that name, it sounds like Project Brows, right? Leonardo, TALUS and Airbus plan to set up a satellite manufacturing company to compete with rivals from China and the US. The head of Airbus' Defence and Space Division said in an interview over the weekend that the companies are on the right track but several issues still need to be clarified before taking on such a major step. Airbus Defence and Space CEO Michael Skollhorn told Italian media that operations of this kind require a two-step process, a framework agreement and then a phase leading to the actual closing of the deal. It's certainly interesting to see this kind of collaboration on the rise in Europe, which is pushing for more sovereign capabilities. Staying in Europe, Luxembourg's SES has announced a partnership with K-Labs to test laser communication technology. SES will test new optical ground stations built by France-based K-Labs to send data from space using laser beams instead of radio waves. By using optical communication, SES expects to be able to boost data transmission speeds, provide more secure links and help alleviate congestion in an increasingly crowded radio frequency bands. The companies plan to use light beams to transmit data at speeds of up to 10 GB/s. That's about 100 times faster than typical home internet. The new ground stations will enable SES to begin testing space-to-ground optical links ahead of integrating them into commercial services. Impulse Space has signed a multi-launch agreement with French in-space services company Infinite Orbits. The agreement covers the delivery of multiple Infinite Orbit spacecraft to geostationary orbit via Impulse's ride-share program Caravan. The first missions include the launch of several services developed by Infinite Orbit, allowing multiple life extension missions and the deployment of an inspection and surveillance microsatellites fleet. According to the press release, at least three spacecraft will be launched in 2027, with additional missions planned each year following. The International Space Station has been and continues to be busy. A day after a Russian cargo resupply mission arrived at the orbiting lab, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched and upgraded Northrop Grumman Space Freighter. It put the unpiloted spacecraft on course for capture by the ISS early Wednesday. The Northrop Grumman CRS-23 Cygnus XL spacecraft is carrying more than 11,000 pounds of cargo to the orbiting lab. Stick around for Maria's chat with Patrick O'Neill from the ISS-US National Lab, coming up to find out more about the science heading to Leo on this mission. That wraps up today's headlines. After Maria's chat with Patrick, we have an update from Torsten at SpaceWatchGlobal from World Space Business Week in Paris. Before that, our producer Liz Stokes joins us with some of the other stories we're watching. Liz, what do you have for us? Global Star has expanded its operational frequencies to increase satellite connectivity, and York Space has established contact and confirmed the health of all 21 satellites launched for the SDA's Tranche 1 transport-layer mission. And where can we read more about those stories, Liz? Links to further reading on all of the stories mentioned throughout the episode can be found in the selected reading section of our show notes, and on our website, space.n2k.com. Just click on today's episode title. Hi, T-miners crew. If you'd like daily updates from us directly in your LinkedIn feed, be sure to follow the official N2K T-minus page over on LinkedIn. And if you're more interested in the lighter side of what we do here, we are @t-minusdaily on Instagram. That's where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions and even some behind-the-scenes treats. Links are in the show notes and we hope you'll join us there. Today we have our monthly update from Patrick O'Neill, the Public Affairs and Outreach Lead at the International Space Station, US National Lab. He spoke with T-minus host Maria Valmarzis. I know we want to talk more about what's coming up, but I want to just review a few things before we get to the what's coming up about what they've been up to. And since we last spoke, which is a lot of things and we can't possibly cover all of it, but when I was reviewing some of the missions that they've been in, the experiments they've been working on, bioprinting is the word that comes up a lot. And I realized I don't actually know for sure how that works. And I figured you're the perfect person to ask because I have assumptions about what that entails, but like, what does it entail? What does it entail? So, you know, as we're kind of chatting offline, it is kind of bridging that gap between science fiction and science reality and using that space environment, taking gravity away. You know, if that's the case, how can we look at things differently? And so, Redwire Space has worked with a variety of partners over the years and they have a bio fabrication facility, a bioprinter to the space station to examine, can we eventually print things, whether that's a tissue or an organ? Can we do that more nominally in a space environment and be able to bring that, extract that back down to patients here on the ground? It sounds totally crazy and this space station is probably not going to be that mechanism where we're actually doing the manufacturing at, but this is where we're doing the validation of does this work? Does it hold quite literally? And so the thought is that in that space environment, I'm not a doctor. So, you know, I've never done these organs trying to print an organ here on the ground. I'm also not a doctor. One of the things, I just play on TV, right? Yeah. So one of the constraints that I've heard is that they just, they kind of fall apart. They just, they don't hold their formation. Whereas the thought is to try to do something like this in a space environment where you no longer have the variables of, you know, convection and push and pull. Like you're just, you're able to build something in a more perfect environment and perhaps that structure can kind of, you know, gel together a little more effectively so that by the time it's ready for it to go back down to earth and to, you know, go to a patient. You know, maybe it's all structured up to the way where even when it gets back into that gravity environment, it's not going to fall apart. Oh my gosh. So we're at the very, very basic elements though. And that's why I always want to preface this where, you know, it could eventually happen. It's not happening yet, but that's why they're testing right now. They're trying to look at different areas. So in the past, red wire has printed a human meniscus in space and they brought that back down. They printed a cardiac muscle also in space. They brought that back down for further evaluation. So they just keep building on that. And so that's the beauty of having the space station is it allows for us to kind of have this test kitchen in space and to mix and match and see what works. And so that's where the red wire team is at right now with a variety of other academic research teams is seeing kind of how they can leverage this space station to advance the notion of bio printing in space. And to see if that could potentially be a viable case study or an avenue, a business model for them in the future. And some other stuff that they've been working on lately with Expedition 73, a lot of crew health experiments, it's important for them and for future human space exploration. Any highlights recently that you might want to highlight about what they've been up to there? Well, so there's a couple of things that they've been working on. NASA and both the ISS National Lab are very focused on the notion of in space production applications. How can we use the space environment to manufacture things? And so you alluded to a lot of biomedical research that's been happening. So the crew has been actively working on projects that have been funded by NASA through the in space applications program that are sponsored by the ISS National Lab. And some of the ones in particular are looking at induced pluripotent stem cells. And they're looking at the notion of personalized stem cells so that we can create more effective therapeutics for us either on the ground here or for astronauts that are living and working in space. I mean, these are all things that we need to put into consideration. And so one of the ones you and I were also talking about too is looking at how blood and like that, you know, how if you have a bit of a puffier face. So why is that in space versus when they come back down and then things get back to normal, so to speak. And I would say the easiest way to characterize that is think of all of the major arteries that we have and extremities that we have in our body. And here on the ground, you know, you just flow blood flows naturally all over the place because there were in a gravity filled environment. You go into a microgravity environment and now all of a sudden, well, things flow differently and where do they flow to. So maybe it only flows to things like the brain and it's not going to go down to your legs or go down to your arms in the same way that it would otherwise. So maybe that's one of the reasons why it is we see astronauts that have kind of that puffy face where you're seeing much more blood flow going to the areas that your body needs in order for you to be able to live non-belief. Yeah, it's interesting at the puffy face and then the congestion. I remember a lot of the astronauts say that they're very congested. And then you also mentioned eyesight changes. Yeah, there seems to be some kind of pressurization that happens where the eyesight of some of the astronauts is impacted a bit. And so the question is why? I mean, again, if you're going to keep living off of this planet in low Earth orbit or eventually the moon or going all the way to Mars and maybe eventually beyond, you know, we need to be able to understand what's happening to the human body in an area where we're only 250 miles above us. Again, kind of the same type of thing where maybe it's because we're just seeing a lot more of the blood that's kind of going up into that brain area. And maybe it's kind of getting behind areas where it creates scenarios where maybe you're not able to see as effectively. Again, these are all things that NASA is actively evaluating so that that way we can live in work not just in low Earth orbit, but in actual space. Absolutely. And speaking of living and working in space, we've got a resupply mission. That's a really awkward transition on my part. A resupply mission. It's coming up soon as of the time of this recording. It's scheduled for the 14th of September as of time over this recording. It's going to be Sunday, a fun day at the rocket ranch indeed. That's exciting times. A lot of science is heading up to the ISS. So it's hard to pick some faves, but I'm always very interested in cancer research. It's just amazing what's happening up on the ISS in terms of what we're learning in microgravity about how the cells react, but also how treatments fare. The beauty of the space station is also that it's, you know, maybe it's not even sometimes focused only on a cancer research. Maybe it's kind of research that's barely broad in the biomedical field, but it could be applied towards cancer therapeutics. And so one of the projects that's flying on this one, Bristol-Meyer Squibb, they are no stranger to launching investigations to the space station. They've flown many over the years and they've used a variety of partners to do so. The last couple of times they've worked with, again, Redwire Space to leverage the pharmaceutical in-space laboratory, or what we like to call it, the pillbox on the space station. And so what's cool about that is it allows for them to look at crystals in space. And so protein crystal growth has been a mainstay of research for the pharmaceutical company for decades. And so again, space station, no different in that regard. Bristol-Meyer Squibb is looking to find ways to leverage the space environment so that, again, they can create more effective therapeutics that, you know, are sometimes already in development. And then sometimes you're also looking at things, you know, that maybe we can just leverage space, learn something here, and then now we can insert it into other types of R&D. So that's a fun investigation. And again, the fact that you have a variety of large recognizable pharmaceutical companies that see the value and interest in doing research on station, to me, that always demonstrates they're learning something. If you're going back and allocating your time and your effort to doing this, then you know that you're doing something in a novel environment and you want to continue to exploit that for the benefit of patients here on the ground or beyond. Yeah, and another industry that's very interested in crystal growth, especially in space, is the study conductor industry. To your point, it can be allocated in advanced materials or advanced materials, communications, things of that nature. So that's definitely a big thing for us. I would say that, you know, speaking of satellite technology, advanced communications, there's a revolution space. They're going to be launching an investigation that's actually going in Cygnus. So it's going to arrive on the Cygnus spacecraft, but it's not going to be brought in with the rest of the investigations. It's actually going to be staying on the Cygnus craft. And then when the Cygnus vehicle leaves the space station, then they're going to start to look at some propulsion systems. And this could advance some R&D in the area where instead of it being a much more pronounced or a large satellite, you know, maybe it's like smaller sats. But it's also kind of fun too to mess with the Cygnus in that regard because these are some things that maybe sometimes you don't always get to do inside the normal confines of the space station because we just want to make sure that the astronauts continue to maintain, you know, that they're safe and they're healthy. Oh yeah, there's a premium on the space in there for sure. Yeah, but you can. So the Cygnus vehicle is very important to us for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, while it's on station, it is something that we have the ability to put a lot of extra materials or trash into it, which is very important because we only have so much room on the space station. But again, you can also do some fun experiments on it once it leaves the space station that maybe you wouldn't have the ability to do when it was affixed to the orbiting laboratory. So there's been a lot of combustion investigations over the years. And now there's this one where, again, they're going to be looking at propulsion mechanisms and in hope in toggling to see kind of is there is there something that they can learn while they're leveraging that Cygnus spacecraft for the time that they have to be able to extrapolate that and put that into other satellite technology in the future. There's another investigation that's going up. It's called Capture Bag. It's also known as Flytrap too. But it's a space debris tech demonstration and it's going to be using Voyager Technologies Bishop airlock. And it's basically going to be trying to see again, can we catch things in that space environment? And this obviously this is a tech demo and it's happening on the inside of the space station and a confined environment on the Bishop airlock. But at the same time, eventually is that something that could be put on the outside of if not this space station, then future space stations so that that way we can again try to catch things as we see them coming and maintain mission viability. Patrick, anything else you want to mention about what's coming up that you want to leave the audience with today? Well, I mean, one thing I would say is I think we talked about this last time too. One of the projects that was flying on SpaceX 33 was looking at edge computing, AI components. Well, we're going to be having another one that's going to be, and this is what's cool is that you're having a lot of these companies recognize the critical importance of us to be able to transfer data in bandwidth and cloud computing components in space. And that's going to be beneficial for us from a research perspective and it's going to be beneficial for us as we continue to explore. So there's going to be a project that's through Voyager Technologies as well called Leo cloud or any cloud. And that's going to be kind of building on some of the similar types of ideas of edge computing in space. And so, you know, the great thing again is if we're having multiple ways of people to test edge computing, then eventually the market's going to dictate what the best avenue is as we continue to live and work on this space station. So again, we're using this ISS as a great platform for an incubator in low Earth orbit where we get the test mixed and match. And then as we go to these commercial destinations in low Earth orbit, we can get a real good sense of what are the best pathways forward for some of these technologies so that we can transfer data so that we can have AI in space so that we can iterate investigations in space before they come back down for further analysis and then have to fly again a few years later. So what can we do to make this space station as equipped as possible so that we can equally equip other space stations down the road? We'll be right back. Welcome back. I'll hand you over to Torsten Kreining from SpaceWatch Global with the latest from World Space Business Week in Paris. Hello, RT Miners listeners. Hey, Space Watchers. It is our great pleasure to give you our daily update on the World Space Business Week 2025 here in Paris. And I'm sharing a few points here for the daily show. Day one is always the busy one. This year it has a new location as the good old Westin is about to get renovated. So the event moved to the hotel, the collectionaire and again, got sold out. That is fantastic. This event is the most important commercial space gathering in Europe created by Novaspace. The opening by Novaspace CEO Parkourm Rivoyong showed where the global sector stands, the global space sector, of course. He highlighted the events growth and the involvement of major sponsors and partners. He emphasized the three pillars of space activities, sovereignty, technology and business. This global space investment is approaching 50 billion dollar driven by defense and security over 100 countries invest in space with 50 focusing on military assets. Technological advancements, including digital broadcasting and mega constellations, have significantly impacted the industry. The sector is experiencing active M&A activities with over 50 transactions this year. The Satcom market is expected to reach 130 billion dollar by the end of this decade driven by broadband and data centric businesses. ISAS Director General Dr. Josef Aszbach also discussed financial plans and budgets. ISAS budget is 7.7 billion euro annually. The European Commission's proposal for the next multinational financial framework MFF includes 130 billion euro for space and defense. A five-fold increase, Dr. Aszbach emphasized the importance of aligning ISAS activity with the Commission and strengthening global partnerships, particular in the context of geopolitical changes. Next point of interest was the press conference of EchoStar talking about the spectrum deal with SpaceX. EchoStar shared more about their recent change of course with a result. They became the first and only what they call a hybrid M&O. With this critical move, they abandoned their long-standing business plan and practice and pivoted to something different and unexpected, demonstration in agility and example of how to meet the rapid demand of the industry. This is going to be a massive growth company. We also attended the press conference of ESA Aerospace, the Munich-based small launcher that had their first launch attempt earlier this year. In the press conference, they talked in detail about the launch failure and the goal they had. The goal was to leave the pad and to test their own developed flight determination system. There was an unintended opening of a wall and in parallel they lost communication with the altitude control role, the software failure. They could discover 90-95% of the rocket. So way forward, they are in test campaigns to get the certification for the found error and to get the license to launch again. Just to remind, Spectrum, their rocket, is an in-house built rocket to launch up to one ton to Leo orbit. This is needed as part of the European sovereignty to access space frequently in the near future. We can expect another launch in the months to come as this topic of European launchers is very hot for Europe at the moment here. We also had an exciting panel about the space activities of the GCC, Gulf Corporation countries, the Middle Eastern countries. That included UAE's, MBRSC and Space 42, Saudi Arabia's, New Space Group and others. Definitely a part of the world to watch. For tomorrow, the event will split into the main track of the World Space Business Week, continuing on infrastructure launchers in orbit servicing and manufacturing and in parallel, the SDSS, the Space Defense and Security Summit, focusing fully on the defense side. My quote of the day from Fred Turbin on the financial panel, "You have to get in love with revenues." Stay tuned for your SpaceWatch Global Update from Paris. That's it from 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. Thank you for helping us to 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 the nexus for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, technology and ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how at N2K.com. N2K's executive producer is Jennifer Eiben, our producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our host is Maria Varmazis, Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I'm N2K senior producer Alice Carruth. Thanks for listening. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]