Space cyber resilience, lunar ambitions, and orbital servicing.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Today is September 25, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-minus. [MUSIC PLAYING] T-minus. 22nd to LOS, T-dred. Open aboard. [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC PLAYING] Five. Planet Labs plans to begin production of its next generation Pelican satellites in Germany. Four. Xenopower and Orano have signed an agreement, which aims to help Xeno source material for nuclear space power. Three. Redwire has been awarded a contract from Axiom Space to develop and deliver rollout solar array wings for Axiom Station's payload power thermal module. Two. NASA has awarded catalyst space technologies a $30 million contract to raise a spacecraft's orbit. One. Japan's ice space and elevation space plan to pursue a private mission that will return a lunar sample to Earth. [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC PLAYING] And our guest today is Dan Trujillo, AFRL's Space Vehicle Directorate's Space Cyber Resiliency Technical Lead. We're going to be talking about the AFRL Space Cyber Summit, which is coming up in October. So stick around for more details on that later in today's show. [MUSIC PLAYING] Happy Thursday, everybody. It's good to be back. Let's dive in, shall we? Japan's ice space and elevation space have signed an agreement to pursue a private mission that will return a lunar sample back to Earth. The two companies plan to explore the development of atmospheric reentry and recovery technology for bringing materials developed in space back to Earth and to develop technologies and create business opportunities for lunar sample return missions. The big question is, of course, is it doable? Well, time will, of course, tell. Ice space is obviously well acquainted with commercial lunar missions, having already demonstrated the technology to deploy a lander into lunar orbit through its two lunar missions operated in 2023 and 2025. However--and this is a big "however"-- neither mission achieved a planned landing with both vehicles crashing hard into the lunar surface. The company is currently considering the development of an orbital transfer vehicle derived from its existing lunar lander development technology. Elevation space is looking to conduct a technology demo to verify the feasibility of missions using its sample return reentry capsule, which is still under development. Then there is the business plan of all this because who would want the samples, right? Well, ice space and elevations say that they are actively already in communications with various potential customers, including governments, space agencies, and private entities, both domestically and internationally. Ultimately, if they are successful, it could potentially be the first commercial lunar sample return mission, which is, you gotta say, pretty neat. In all cases, we wish them the best of luck. Moving on now, NASA has awarded Catalyst Space Technologies a $30 million contract to raise a spacecraft's orbit. Catalyst's robotic servicing spacecraft will rendezvous with NASA's Neil Garrell's SWIFT observatory and raise it to a higher altitude, demonstrating a key capability for the future of space exploration and extending the SWIFT mission's science lifetime. To recap, the SWIFT spacecraft itself was launched in 2004 to explore gamma ray bursts, and SWIFT's low Earth orbit has been decaying gradually thanks to orbital mechanics. You know, it happens to satellites over time. However, because of recent increases in the sun's activity, SWIFT is experiencing more atmospheric drag than earlier anticipated, speeding up its orbital decay. While NASA could have allowed the observatory to just reenter Earth's atmosphere, as many missions do at the end of their lifetimes, SWIFT's lowering orbit presents an opportunity to advance American spacecraft servicing technology. So the orbit boost is targeted for spring 2026, though NASA will continue to monitor any changes in solar activity that may impact the target timeframe. A successful SWIFT boost would be the first time a commercial robotic spacecraft captures a government satellite that is uncrewed or not originally designed to be serviced in space. Redwire has been awarded a contract from Axiom Space to develop and deliver rollout solar array wings for Axiom Station's payload power thermal module, and the module known as AXPPTM will be the first module for Axiom's commercial space station. Axiom Space plans to attach its AXPPTM to the International Space Station as the first module in its assembly sequence, followed by Habitat 1 or AXH1, an airlock, Habitat 2, and finally, the research and manufacturing facility. After the launch and verthing of AXPPTM to the International Space Station, the module will separate and rendezvous with AXH1 on orbit, resulting in Axiom Station's independent operational capability. That will be a really cool day. Axiom says this approach enables the two module station to become a free flyer as early as 2028 and an independent four module station by 2030. Xenopower and Orano have signed an agreement which aims to help Xeno source material for nuclear space power. And the companies plan to secure a reliable supply of Amoretium-241, or AM-241, which is a long-lived isotope uniquely suited for space power from Orano's used nuclear fuel recycling operations. And Xeno says Amoretium-241 will fuel the company's space nuclear batteries, also known as radio isotope power systems, which are designed to support missions to the Moon and beyond. And historically, this kind of system has used plutonium-238 as a fuel source, but that isotopes got a very limited global supply, and there is rising demand for reliable space power, which has accelerated the search for additional viable fuel sources. Under this agreement between Xenopower and Orano, Xeno will make a multi-million dollar investment to obtain priority access to large quantities of Amoretium-241 per year from Orano's recycling site in Normandy, France. And speaking of Europe, for our final story today, Planet Labs plans to begin production of its next-generation Pelican satellites in Germany. The company says it is making the move to help them better meet growing demand from the European market. Planet will continue to manufacture spacecraft in its San Francisco headquarters and shared plans to expand that facility in the near future. The company says it will open its new facility in Berlin to double the overall production capacity of the Pelican fleet. Planet is expected to invest over eight figures on the new facility in Germany and is anticipated to add up to 70 employees when fully operationalized to the existing team of nearly 150 in its Berlin-based European headquarters. [music] And that wraps up today's Top 5 Stories for You, my friends. You can read more about all of those by following the links in the selected reading section of our show notes. And speaking of those links, we always include more for you to read up on. And 2K Senior Producer Alice Carruth has the additional stories included today. Thanks, Maria. I'm glad you're feeling better and back on the mic today. Our space has signed a launch agreement for two satellites to be manifested on an ISAR Spectrum vehicle in 2026 from Andorra's Spaceport. Turian Space will fly Arite's next-generation event camera in 2027. Space Systems Command Front Door Initiative has been renamed to the Space Force Front Door. And another 27-project Kuiper satellites were deployed this morning thanks to ULA. Thank you, Alice. It is good to be back. And again, you can read more about all of those stories by following the links in the show notes. They can also be found on our website, space.entuk.com. Hi, T-minus listeners. We have regular segments that we air here on T-minus, where we have regular experts that join us monthly to talk in depth about their areas of expertise. And if you have burning questions, our guest experts may have answers for you. Law, cybersecurity, intelligence, policy and innovation, got questions on any of those? Well, just send us your questions to space@entuk.com and we'll share them with our segment experts to answer on the show. Chances are whatever's on your mind is top of mind for lots of other listeners, too. Don't be shy, and thank you. [music] [music] Today's guest is Dan Trujillo, AFRL's Space Vehicle Directorate's Space Cyber Resiliency Technical Lead. And Dan started off by telling me more about his fascinating role. [music] My current job is I lead the Space Cyber Resiliency Technical Area for the Air Force Research Labs in the Space Vehicles Directorate. Now, I always say Air Force Research Labs, but I actually work for the U.S. Space Force because we're a little bit of a carve-out because of the Space Vehicles Directorate. So our motto is "One Lab Serving Two Services." So I lead a team of scientists and engineers and we do research and development to secure our space vehicles from cyber attack. And so we do a lot of research in taking raw technology, visions, concepts, maturing it in the lab. Because a lot of these are just cyber technologies that we want to bump up or integrate into space systems. How that cyber intrusion detection system works, for example, how it actually will work in a space vehicle or a space system can be different. Especially when you can't go up and fix those satellites, right? You can't go up and touch them or do things. It's just all through software updates. And that's a large part of our job. The goal is to get capability to the warfighter, right? And that capability is in the form of space vehicles providing PNT, ISR, Nucne-Nutection, SDA, and all that. So how do you take these ideas that come away from far, far from the... I'll say on the left side, right? The R&D and mature them till they actually are able to run in a space system and then be able to transition. And that's the overall gist of how we move technology to the warfighter, right? But we also know that there's a mix between what the DOD is doing, what commercial is doing, what the intelligence community is doing, what NASA, for example, civil, right? And so we also want to secure those assets as well because we're moving into that future space architecture. And I think everybody... The biggest example out there is SpaceX, right? With these thousands of satellites that are networks together and all the services that they're going to provide. And of course, people are moving out to that domain. And our main goal is to secure those systems. We want to make sure that we are able to design in the cyber protections from the get-go before this large architecture is built out. Absolutely. Yeah, you're right. It is a fascinating opportunity to get it right. It is. I feel like we're... I always say at the start, but I feel like we are at the start of this explosion into space, right? And all these capabilities that we want to put into the space domain for users or for people on Earth. But as we move out towards the moon and beyond and for space exploration, our satellites are going to have to be autonomous. They're going to have to be working and do things without human communication or interaction. So to me, that's the Wild West, right? That's something that you need to make sure is secure, right? Because if you're going to invest billions or trillions of dollars in this architecture and it goes out and it's cyber-attacked, then you've just lost that, right? It's not like a PC or anything like that. So, like I said, our goal is to make sure that these assets are protected not only because of all the capability up there, but because humans are going to rely on those services that they currently rely on, but it's going to be even more as they come from space. The main reason why we're speaking today is about an event that you all have going on at AFRL coming up in early October that I know we wanted to help put the word out here at T-minus to make sure that people know about it so they can join if this sounds like something that's a good fit for them. So, tell me a bit about the AFRL Space Cyber Summit, please. Yeah, right. So, I'm very proud of the summit because this will be our fifth year from where it began. And so, you know, like you said, space cyber is fairly new. It's the merging of space and cyber roles together. And so, the first one was who's even out there that's interested in space cyber? Who's working on it? Who's a stakeholder? You know, let's find out who these people are. And so, the first one was to gather that group and see what organizations and what they were working on. And as we progressed from year after year, we've expanded, right? It was kind of like, hey, who out in the DOD is working on this, right? And then it was like, hey, who out in academia is working on this and who in commercial? And so, now I start to see the same faces. It is a small group of people. And by the small, I mean, you know, it's thousands, but compared to some of the other domains, it's actually, you know, very small. And so, that is something that I'm very proud of doing is bringing together all of those people to address the cyber threat to our space systems. And, you know, like universities, they want to help us. They have smart kids that are developing these technologies, but they don't really know what we want, you know, how to address the problem, right? And so, you know, we help them understand the problems that we're trying to solve so that they can align their curriculums towards helping us out and do these things. The goal, right, is to get everybody to understand what are the issues associated with protecting space systems against the cyber threat. And, you know, this year, we will hold the summit October the 15th and 16th in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Now, this is an in-person event. I always like to do that. I don't like to do virtual because I like to be people to interact and have good discussions there. So, this particular format on day one will be unclassified. It's open to the public, and that's how we get a lot of the university people and a lot of commercial. And then, of course, the second day is going to be held at a higher classification level where we'll talk about specific things. But that's essentially the summit is the two days. And this year, I'm doing a little bit of a different format. I typically have speakers speak at the audience for 30 minutes, and then there's like five minutes left for questions. But we always want to run long, and we end up having to cut off those questions. So, what I want to do this year is have really more of a 15-minute presentation on a particular topic area. And then the other 40 minutes, or the rest of the hour, is open discussion with the audience. Because what we want to understand is we want to get all those new ideas from them. And so, that's why we're doing it. Now, on day one, we are going to break up into the following areas. And you can get this on our website, but the first topic will be securing the space vehicle supply chain. And, of course, that's important because our space vehicles have hardware and software. There's people developing that software. There's hardware being developed in different areas, and parts being developed in different geographical areas. And they all flow through supply chain. They all flow through networks. They get touched by different organizations. And so, we really need to start thinking about how we're going to secure that. And the second topic will be the cyberharding of space vehicles. Really, that gets into the architecture and reducing as much attack surface and vulnerabilities as possible. And really, what that means is you end up taking a snapshot of what the technology is in time and what you see as the cyber threat. And then you build a technology based on that. But your architecture has to incorporate what could be the unknown going into the future, right? What are the zero-day attacks? And so, that part is resiliency. And so, you need to design for that as well. The third topic will be onboard cyber detection. Obviously, it is important to know that a space vehicle, for example, is under cyber attack because your response matters, right? Because a lot of times cyber attacks can look like faults or malfunctions. And you want to be able to have that ability to detect. And I should say that all these topics are really focused on the space vehicle because that's where I'm focused right now. Not necessarily the ground part because I think that looks more like an IT system. And so, there's a lot of solutions out there for that. But there's not very many for the space vehicle. Yeah, it's sort of a known, yeah. Right. And the other topic or the next topic would be onboard cyber protection, which is how do we kick the malware off? How do we reduce its impact? And then the next would be onboard response strategies. Again, just because you can detect a cyber attack and you think, well, okay, I'll just go and kill that process. That's not the way to do it. You have to be smart about how you respond because you could be executing a mission that you cannot kill that process, right? You might want to see if you could work through that. So, what I'm trying to say here is we have to be smart about how we respond. And the last topic would be designing for adaptive cyber resilience. And the best example that we can use is the human immune system. We don't know what we don't know. There's the zero-day attacks, the unknown attacks that may hit our systems in the future. So, is it possible that we can develop some type of cyber protections that are able to adapt, much like the human body, if you get the cold virus one year and your body can then develop a signature for that. And so, the next year in '26, let's say, that same virus that's morphed, it can detect it, right? You can update all your protection and detection and cyber-hardening technologies to address that. And so, that will be the first day. Yes. Like I said, I want to get good ideas from the audience. The deadline is October 8th. Last year, we got over 100 people. And you can register for day one or day one and day two. If you register for day two, that is a classified event. So, you can have to send in your credentials and so forth and get that set up. So, I hope that people get on this soon. I also think it's a great time of year in Albuquerque, New Mexico. October weather is amazing. We also have the Boon Fiesta out here that's going to be going on that week, which is really cool event. But yeah, I hope that it's another successful event. And that we continue to drive space cyber technologies into the future to address the cyber threat. We will be right back. Welcome back. A lot of things in life are better when shared. And that includes information that benefits all of humanity. Wouldn't you agree? Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory clearly feels the same way regarding their Starfall software, which detects potentially harmful meteors. Or to put it in more official lingo, it is a near real-time, bolide detection software suite. It takes data from NOAA's Geostationary Lightning Mapper or GLM instrument and is able to distinguish bright flashes in our atmosphere that aren't lightning, but are meteors burning up. Quite simply, the light behaves differently. Sounds pretty logical to me. And now Starfall is open source, meaning you, me, anyone with a bit of software know how, can benefit from what this software does. And since Starfall is open source, anyone interested in bolide insights can deploy Starfall to receive alerts and view estimated times, approximate locations, and total energy releases for bolide entries. Part of the beauty of open source software is what the user community can contribute back to the software to make it even better. And the hope is that researchers using Starfall may be able to extend Starfall's current capabilities and help it do even more. So if the prospect of going to a GitHub repo, installing all the prerequisites, dependencies, and then installing and building the Starfall itself sounds doable, and really, if you even understood what I just said, you can poke around the source code for yourself. github.com/spacedynamiclaboratory/starfall Okay, you know what? Link is in the show notes for you. [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. Link is in the show notes. 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 the 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 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. Thank you for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]