[MUSIC PLAYING] Today is October 24, 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] [MUSIC PLAYING] Five. The National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has officially commissioned the Ames telescope. Four. The YF-75DB hydrogen oxygen engine for China's Long March 8A carrier rocket has successfully completed its certification tests. Three. Hungary signs the Artemis Accords and shares plans to send another astronaut to the ISS. Two. Hughes Network Systems, an EchoStar company, has acquired Anderson connectivity. One. The United States Space Force expects to award $905 million in contracts over the next five years for a new maneuverable Geo program. [MUSIC PLAYING] Zero zero. [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] Lift off. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] And on Fridays, our partners at nasaspaceflight.com bring us the Space Traffic Report, wrapping up the launch news from the last seven days and taking a look at what is to come in the next week. Make sure to stick around for more on that after today's Intelligence Briefing. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thank you for joining me on this lovely Friday. Let's dive in, shall we? First up, the United States Space Force expects to award $905 million in contracts over the next five years through a new maneuverable Geo program. The projection is part of the Commercial Satellite Communications Office's fiscal 2026 forecast to industry, an annual document that lays out the requirements and contract opportunities within the office, which is responsible for procuring commercial SATCOM for the entire military. USSF is expected to release requests for proposals and requests for quotes for the future of the ComsatCOM services acquisition, which provides the US Department of Defense procurement of satellite communication capabilities from an approved list of contractors. The 2026 forecast lists seven programs with contracts valued at up to $1.1 billion, with the maneuverable Geo effort coming in as the most prominent project. The program will form a commercial fleet of communication satellites that can shift around in geosynchronous orbit, hence the maneuverable Geo. USSF had planned to award a contract for maneuverable Geo last July, listing the program in the office's fiscal 2025 forecast, but the effort was delayed. The dollar amount, however, has not changed. All this, of course, is subject to change with all of the discussions over the budget happening right now, causing the current US government shutdown. Let's move on. Hughes Network Systems, which is an EchoStar company, has acquired Anderson connectivity. Anderson provides design, engineering, and manufacturing services and is based in Melbourne, Florida. Hughes says the acquisition significantly expands the company's capabilities, adding key technology and engineering talent and product solutions while positioning the company for accelerated growth in the global aviation, space, and defense markets. The cost of the acquisition was not included with the announcement. All right, for this next story, think with me for a minute. When we think of space-faring nations in Europe, which nations come to mind? Some easy ones-- France, Germany, Italy, the UK. Did you also think of Hungary? Well, maybe you should. As Hungary has announced plans to send another research astronaut to the International Space Station with Axiom Space, Gula Sareny has been selected for the mission and will be the third Hungarian to travel to space. To date, citizens of 55 countries have flown in space, and Hungary is currently tied with countries such as the United Arab Emirates, India, Israel, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Spain, each having sent two astronauts into orbit. So if Gula Sareny's mission proved successful, Hungary would actually join the global top 10, tied with Australia and Saudi Arabia, with three astronauts having reached orbit. And Hungary is making the space headlines for another reason this week. Despite the US government shutdown, they have successfully signed the US-led Artemis Accords. Hungary has now become the 57th signatory of the Artemis Accords, outlining norms of behavior for sustainable space exploration. And congratulations to Hungary. Now let's head on over to China and the YF-75DB Hydrogen Oxygen Engine. For China's Long March 8A carrier rocket has successfully completed its certification tests. From September 22nd to October 18th, a total of nine ignitions were carried out during four test runs. The tests covered various operating conditions and validated the engine's working performance under complex conditions, structural reliability, and the operational adaptability of its components. And for China, it means this type of engine has now entered the application and development stage. And staying with China for our last story now, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has officially commissioned the world's first solar magnetic field telescope working in the mid-infrared wavelength. The telescope, known as the Accurate Infrared Magnetic Field Measurements of the Sun, or AIMS, will measure the solar magnetic field to include solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The telescope is in Lenghu Township in northwest China's Qinghai Province at an altitude of about 4,000 meters. It's expected to deliver data that will improve China's solar physics research and enhance the country's capabilities in solar activity monitoring and space weather forecasting. (upbeat music) That wraps up our Intel briefing for today and for this week, but there's always more on the launch news to come from our colleagues at nasaspaceflight.com, but before we get to them, and 2K senior producer Alice Carruth joins me now with a look at the other stories making the headlines today. Alice, what do you have for us? - Maria, yesterday's top story of Airbus Leonardo and Tallis's merger has Europe proceeding with caution. Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director general, told reporters, quote, "It will change the landscape in terms of competition, "and we will take this into account "in our industrial policy and the procurements we make. "We will certainly be watching how that landscape changes "after the merger happens "and the new entity becomes fully operational in 2027." And friends, you can read more about that story and all of the others that we mentioned throughout the show by following the links in the selected reading section of this episode's show notes. Tomorrow, be sure to check your podcast feed for T-minus Deep Space. It's our special edition Saturday show where we share an in-depth interview and dive a bit deeper into the fascinating topics with brilliant guests. And on T-minus Deep Space tomorrow, we have Parker Wyschik and The Nexus, covering CIS Lunar Development. Parker will be joined by Kelly Kettis Ogborn, vice president of global space programs at the Space Foundation, Walter Schroeder, co-founder and CPO at CIS Lunar Industries, and Ron Burke, principal director space enterprise evolution directorate at the Aerospace Corporation. And that is all on T-minus Deep Space tomorrow. ♪ ♪ ♪ Friday's mean, it's time for me to hand you over to nasaspaceflight.com for the Space Traffic Report now. ♪ I'm Alicia Segal for NSF, and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for T-minus Space. The space traffic this week started with some orbital maintenance on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Rijikov and Alexei Zubritsky exited the orbiting outpost on October 16, beginning their roughly six-hour spacewalk at 17-08 UTC. During the spacewalk, the two cosmonauts installed a semiconductor growth experiment, dismantled and ejected an old camera from the Zvezda module, removed hardware from the Poisk module, and literally cleaned a window while they were at it. I'm sure the clearer views will be worth it. As for this weekend launches, those started from China, with the launch of a Chongjiang 6A rocket on October 17 at 7-08 UTC from the Taiwan Satellite Launch Center. The rocket was carrying a batch of 18 Qianfeng Internet satellites into low Earth orbit. China has other Internet satellite constellations like Wohuang, which are often likened to SpaceX's Starlink, Qianfeng satellites actually best resemble Starlink satellites since they're also flat-packed. This was the sixth operational launch of these satellites, bringing the total number of Qianfeng satellites launched into orbit to 119. Also from China, we had the launch of a Connecticut 1 rocket on October 19 at 333 UTC from the Zhouchuan Satellite Launch Center. The rocket was carrying three Earth observation satellites into Sun-synchronous orbit. Two of them were the AirSat-03 and 04 synthetic aperture radar satellites from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is also the owner of CAS Space, the company that builds and launches this rocket. The third of the payloads was the PRSCHS-1, which is Pakistan's first Earth observation satellite designed and built in that country. After those two launches from China, we head back to the US with back-to-back Starlink launches taking place less than two hours apart on October 19. The first one took place at 1739 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida and carried 28 Starlink V2 mini satellites into low Earth orbit. This launch featured veteran booster B1067, which flew for a 31st time, making it, once again, the record-breaking Falcon booster of the fleet with the most number of flights. And it'll likely complete even more flights because it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship a shortfall of Gravitas. Less than two hours after that, at 1924 UTC, another Starlink launch took place, this one from Vandenberg, carrying another 28 Starlink V2 mini satellites into orbit. The booster for this mission, B1088, was flying for an 11th time, and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, of course I still love you. This mission marked quite the milestone for Starlink as it carried the 10,000th Starlink satellite ever to be launched. It also caused some people on social media to panic because of a very poorly timed, unplanned loss of signal from the second stage around the time it was meant to complete its orbital insertion. Many thought that it had failed, or underperformed, or worse, but nope, it was just a very untimely loss of signal. The second stage did its job correctly and deployed the satellites, which were later tracked in the expected orbit. By the way, while these two back-to-back Starlinks were close in time to one another, it wasn't the shortest time between any two SpaceX launches. That record was set last year at 65 minutes, while in this case, it was 104 minutes and 20 seconds. Still, second place, though. Now, what actually broke a turnaround record was the next launch, which also happened to be a Starlink launch from Vandenberg. This one took place on October 22nd at 1416 UTC, and like the previous one, it also carried 28 Starlink V2 mini-satellites into orbit. But this one took place under 67 hours after the previous launch, which broke the pad's own turnaround record between missions. The previous record had been set just last month at 69.5 hours, so while only 2.5 hours were removed from the record, it's still quite noteworthy because it's not a one-off event. SpaceX really is setting the pace at Vandenberg with this increase of cadence, as these two back-to-back Vandenberg launches were actually the 50th and 51st by the company from there just this year alone. Coming back to China, we had the launch of the country's most powerful and most capable rocket so far, the Cheong-Jung-5. Lift-off occurred on October 23rd at 1430 UTC from Launch Complex 1 at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in the island of Hainan. The rocket was carrying the TJS-20 satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. TJS, which stands for Tongxi and Jishu-Shi'an, are a type of secretive Chinese military satellite dedicated to communications testing. It's been speculated that these are mostly signal intelligence satellites, most of which have been deployed in geosynchronous orbit. At the end of the week, we had the launch of another Falcon 9, but no Starlink's on this one. Instead, it was carrying the SpainSat New Generation 2 satellite for Spain into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. This satellite is the second of the two SpainSat New Generation satellites to be launched, and both of them are part of the latest military communication satellites for the Spanish government. Unfortunately, due to their huge mass, they've needed expendable Falcon 9 rockets to launch them. So, for this mission, booster B1076 flew for its 22nd and last time, as there was no possibility of launching the satellite into the desired orbit while reserving propellant for the booster's return. Going into next week, we'll have the potential for up to five Starlink launches once again. Japan will also try to launch the first HTV-X cargo resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station. The original launch attempt had to be postponed by several days due to unfavorable weather at the launch site. JAXA is now eyeing a new launch attempt on October 26th at midnight UTC. So, let's hope that the weather is favorable this time. Next week, we may also have the debut of a new rocket, the Hand-Bit Nano rocket by South Korean rocket company InnoSpace. But the mission, called "Spaceward," won't be taking place from a South Korean launch site, rather from the Alcantara Launch Center in Brazil. A few missions will also pop up from China, as usual, including the launch of the next crew rotation mission to the Tiangong Space Station, Senjo 21. As always, if you want to keep up with the latest in spaceflight, you can check out nextspaceflight.com or download the app on your phone to stay up to date wherever you go. I'm Alicia Segal for NSF, and that's your weekly space traffic report. Now back to T-Minus Space. [music] We'll be right back. [music] We're coming up on Halloween, and we thought maybe today we'd get a little spooky with our final Friday story. So here's a blood-chilling tale from not all that long ago. Sure to send shivers down your spine. The Tale of the Zombie Satellite. [music] LES-1, the Lincoln Experimental Satellite, launched in the year 1965, and it was a military demonstration satellite built by NASA's Lincoln Labs in Massachusetts, not far from Salem. [music] Okay, not exactly right next door, but same state. It's a stretch. Okay, moving on. LES was supposed to be one of a series of satellites to test high-frequency communications, specifically in the X-band, but not long after its successful launch on a Titan 3A rocket, there was a problem. For some spooky reason, there was a miswiring in its circuits, and LES-1's motors never fired. Its intended orbit was haunted. And so LES-1 didn't make its intended orbit and was instead set adrift, tumbling in a suboptimal orbit. A mere two years later, in 1967, LES-1 officially went dark. Doomed for all time, it seemed. [music] That is, until nearly 45 years later, until some amateur radio enthusiasts in 2012 in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Germany started hearing something rather creepy from places above us that should have been quiet. They were able to confirm that haunting sound you're hearing was indeed the actual voice of LES-1, which once was dead and is now a shambling zombie satellite. If you listen closely, you can almost hear it say "brains." Now we don't know exactly what kind of dark magic awakened LES-1. A cosmic ray flipping just the right air into bit? Hmm, most likely a corrosive failure in the battery that is somehow letting power get through directly to the transmitter once it's in sunlight. And to this day, on particularly dark but hopefully not at all stormy nights, if you listen very closely to the skies with just the right equipment, you too can hear the plaintive moans and creaking groans of the haunted zombie satellite LES-1, still tumbling about in orbit to this very day. Great! [Music] And that's T-minus, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. 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 a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space@n2k.com. 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're 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. Have a lovely weekend. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
