Europe pushes forward in the direct-to-device space race.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Today is November 10, 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. Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket is set to attempt launch on Wednesday, November 12, after unfavorable weather forced a scrub on Sunday. Four. Raytheon has signed a memorandum of understanding with Italy's Avio to establish a solid rocket motor facility in the United States. Three. China's Institute of Mechanics's Sky Flight Science and Technology Center has unveiled new in-space infrastructure. Two. Chinese commercial space company Galactic Energy said a launch mission for one of its series one rockets failed 10 minutes after liftoff. One. Vodafone is partnering with AST Space Mobile to establish a Europe-led satellite constellation to provide satellite to smartphone connectivity for commercial and government applications. Zero zero. [MUSIC PLAYING] Liftoff. Liftoff. [MUSIC PLAYING] After today's headlines, Parker Wyschik, senior communications specialist at the Aerospace Corporation, will be bringing us the Nexus. And this week, Parker will be tackling UK space launch and is joined by Colin MacLeod, head of UK space regulation at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, Matt Archer, director of launch at the UK Space Agency, and David Sandy, managing director at the Aerospace Corporation UK Limited. [MUSIC PLAYING] [SCREAMING] Happy Monday, everybody. Before I dive into today's intelligence briefing, I do want to share a quick show note for you now. Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 11th, is Veterans Day here in the United States. We will be taking a pause from the daily programming to share a timely T-minus deep space episode on transitioning from service to civilian life. And we will be back to our normal programming on Wednesday, November 12th. And with that, let us dive into today's Intel Briefing, shall we? First up, telecommunications giant Vodafone is partnering with AST SpaceMobile to establish a Europe-led satellite constellation to provide satellite to smartphone connectivity for commercial and government applications. The constellation's European Operational Center will be based in Germany with potential sites near Munich or Hanover under consideration. The German Center will provide connectivity for mobile network operators across Europe, supporting broadband services, public protection, and disaster relief. The constellation will feature a command switch for oversight and security, including communication encryption and satellite control over Europe. The initiative will be managed by a joint venture between Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile. It is hoped that it will rival SpaceX's Starlink, which by the way recently signed a deal with telecom's group Veon to deliver direct-to-cell connectivity that could give the SpaceX unit access to 150 million potential customers across Veon's markets. Well, well, well, the directed device market is certainly heating up. For our second story now, let's head over to China. Commercial space company Galactic Energy said a launch mission for one of its series one rockets failed earlier today, preventing it from delivering its payload of satellites to orbit. The spacecraft lifted off from the Juchuan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 12.02 PM local time on Monday, but it suffered an abnormal engine shutdown almost 10 minutes later. The cause of the anomaly is currently unknown. The company released a statement saying that they will thoroughly learn from the lessons of this mission failure and "continuously optimize our rocket design and quality management systems and carry on advancing China's commercial space exploration sector with more reliable performance and steadier progress." Galactic Energy has stepped up the frequency of its series one rocket launches in recent years with over a dozen successful missions since 2023. This is, however, not the first mishap. They did previously experience a mishap in September 2023 that led to the loss of a series one rocket and its payload. That said, the timing of this anomaly could not be worse for the Chinese firm, as the company is currently undergoing the tutoring process for a potential initial public offering in China. So we are sure that they will correct the issue before they look to enter the public market. And staying in China for our third story, the Institute of Mechanics' Sky Flight Science and Technology Center has unveiled new in-space infrastructure. The center's director, Yang Yichang, told Chinese media that they are looking to manufacture and produce directly within the space environment, achieving independent development and utilization of space resources. And the new infrastructure is being dubbed a new in-space factory. The CAS Institute leading the project said their expandable structure would be an ideal platform for future space-based mass production of items such as biopharmaceuticals, 3D-printed products, and new materials. Next up, Raytheon have signed a memorandum of understanding with Italy's Avio to establish a solid rocket motor facility in the United States. The facility aims to serve Raytheon and other customers as a vertically integrated merchant supplier. And as part of the agreement, Raytheon will have preferred access to a share of the Avio plant production capacity to meet future demand. Avio and Raytheon say that they are committed to working together to ensure the successful implementation of this initiative and to support the defense needs of the United States and its allies. And just wondering, were you one of the many folks that traveled to Florida this past weekend to see the second launch of Blue Origin's New Lennon only to be disappointed by the normally glorious Florida weather? Yeah, the 322-foot rocket was set to take off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during an 88-minute launch window that opened at 2.45 PM Eastern time on Sunday. But New Origin revealed during a live stream that, unfortunately, cloud cover rolled into the area preventing the launch. Blue Origin says that they will try again on Wednesday, November 12th. They appealed to the FAA to circumvent the new launch restrictions and, as such, have secured a launch window from 2.50 to 4.17 PM Eastern time. And we wish them the best of luck for that launch. [MUSIC PLAYING] And that concludes today's Intel Briefing. N2K senior producer Alice Carruth joins us now with a look at other stories making the headlines today. Alice, what do you have for us? There's just one additional story of note today, Maria. That's in addition to us all waiting on updates on whether or not the US government shutdown is on its way to being resolved this week. IonQ and the University of Chicago have signed a deal to accelerate quantum research and commercialization. IonQ, of course, is looking to develop a space-based quantum key distribution network, so we're always excited to hear about their developments. Regular listeners know that every day at the end of each episode of T-minus, I read the names of all the people who work on this show. It is a big team effort to get this show published every day. And you, dear listener, also play a very important role, too. Because every time you share an episode of T-minus with your colleagues or on social media, that not only helps us grow, but more importantly, it shows us how our work is useful and interesting to you. So if you enjoy T-minus, please don't keep us hidden. Share our show in your social and professional networks, because it helps us grow and makes T-minus even better every day. And thank you for being a part of the T-minus crew. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] I'll hand you over now to Parker Wysiek of the Aerospace Corporation for the Nexus. And you're here in the Nexus, courtesy of the T-minus Space Daily Podcast. My name is Parker Wysiek with the Aerospace Corporation. This is the British Invasion Edition of Nexus. I'm thrilled to have some leaders from the United Kingdom joining me for this discussion. They are Matthew Archer, the Mission and Capabilities Director of Launch at the UK Space Agency. Colin McLeod is head of UK Space Regulation at the UK's Civil Aviation Authority. And my colleague Dave Sandy is managing director of the Aerospace Corporation UK Limited. Let's start with where the UK is right now on space. And so Matt, can you tell us the overarching UK approach to space, help summarize maybe some of the most important national priorities for space? Yeah. So the UK Space Agency has been in existence for just over a decade. Prior to that, it's been seen as largely a scientific and exploration focused kind of activity in terms of space. And we do a lot of work with the European Space Agency that runs sort of major mission. Increasingly over the last 10 years, what we've seen is a real focus in the UK of starting to see the commercial side of space. And we've really focused on industrial growth, focusing on how we can increase the number of space jobs in the UK. But if we think about how do we play in international context, what are we really good at? So we know we are one of the biggest builders of satellites outside of the US and China. We tend to have very specialist and high expertise in Earth observation, reconnaissance, SATCOMs, as well as a number of other areas that people still buy across the world. So we've really focused on how do we work with those providers to build our industrial base. And that's grown kind of quickly over the last decade compared to the rest of the UK economy. And that's partly recognized in why we exist as a space agency and why we are much bigger than we were. Admittedly, we're still small compared to NASA. We're about 350 people. But it's a real focus for the government on how do we deploy the sort of 650 million pounds a year in civil budget, but also the sort of billion pounds a year in defense budget to say, what's the maximum impact that we can bring, not just on growing industry and providing capability to our allies, but also thinking, I think, much more acutely these days of what is the threat that we face in space? How do we support allied capability? And equally doing that from both a civil technology perspective, but also working very closely with our kind of space command colleagues to say, well, how can we play our capability into those programs and really respond with a kind of growing sense of what we can do in space? So for the UK, yeah, very much still focused on two priorities, which is driving economic growth and improving national security outcomes. Colin, describe your role as the head of space regulation and what you see your role in accelerating the UK's space economy. So yes, I'm the head of the regulator. I regulate all space activities. We license the space ports, the launchers, the range capabilities, and the orbital activities as well. And the first example of we were able to show that in practice was the Virgin Orbit launch. Sadly, it didn't go with it. Everyone wanted it to go. But from a regulatory perspective, what it showed was we were able to deliver the capability to do safe regulation of an organization, which was a complicated mission from start to finish. We're not a licensing authority. We regulate. We have an ongoing and enduring relationship with the operators who are manufacturing the vehicles and flying the missions. What that means is we would like to try and grant a license to an operator as soon as possible. So you can see in the UK at the moment, you have Rocket Factory Augsburg as a license to launch. Skyrora, another rocket company, I've got a license to launch. Hi Impulse, I've got a license to launch. I've got another three or four companies who are coming to the UK because we've got this end-to-end regulatory system, which allows them to go through the process. And I think it helps companies as well, because investors kind of come for it. Because we are trying not to caps them out, but we are trying to support companies to develop. We want to be off the critical path for their operation. So we license as early as we can do. And then we work with them to make sure that they can continue to develop their capabilities and build their vehicles ready for launch. Hopefully, we will see the first vertical launch from the north of Scotland in the not too distant future. That will hopefully start to open the gates, as it were, to lots more activities. Once you've done it once, it's a lot easier. And I would say, now that we've launched four different rocket companies, it's getting quicker and easier for us to do it, because we've got more confidence and skills and more understanding. And we also gain a huge amount by working with colleagues in America and other countries around the world. As a regulator, a bit like aviation, I don't view regulation as a competitive edge. I view regulation as we should all be sharing good practice. We should all be making sure that people will protect assets and we can operate missions safely and not have regulation as a commercial tool to try and control operations. Yeah, in talking about taking lessons from the United States, collaborating with the United States and other nations, in here we have multiple regulatory agencies that cover different aspects of space. You are the single regulatory pipeline. What's the feedback from the UK space industry on how you operate the regulatory mechanisms? And is there any value in going faster is always an ideal, but do you ever have people ask, when do we need to slow down? It's a really interesting question, because as I've seen earlier, we have now licensed four rockets. All of those vehicles were licensed before they were technically ready to operate. So the biggest challenges that I see with the sector are almost all technical challenges rather than regulatory challenges. Since 2021, when we took over the role of the regulator, we've issued over 400 licenses in terms of orbit, space port missions, launch over. We have not yet stopped a mission from taking place because they didn't have a license. Now, obviously, just need to caveat that a little bit, because we work with the companies to try and match their ambitions for launch, but we haven't actually delayed a mission yet in the four-year of operating. Yes, it was challenging four years ago when the new regulatory system came in, but they now are able to almost crank the handle and get through the licensing system for the satellites, which are very similar. So if they're moving towards more mass production of the same kind of satellites for different customers or to grow constellations, it's easier for us to work with them. It's easier for them to get a regulatory decision from us and then allow us to regulate them going forward. So you mentioned technical capabilities and you mentioned 2021, and that's roughly the timeline in which the Aerospace Corporation launched the UK subsidiary Aerospace UK. Dave, when we launched Aerospace UK, the stated goal at that time was to help the UK develop software and space capabilities. Five years in almost, where are you on that journey with your customers? Five or six years ago when the company was landed, it was quite, it was requested by the UK government. I think not a lot of people know that, but they started out, they had ambition to have that space software and program. They kind of have been doing space before that, but they really wanted to take their ambition and partner better and deeper with the US. Therefore, the obvious choice was to land a company like Aerospace, who are completely independent. You get to peek behind the curtain and you get to see a lot of things and therefore you can bring forward those ideas that are most ripe or near-term cooperation that unlock sovereign space capabilities. So five years ago, the company was very focused on responding to the ask or the request from either Space Agency or MOD. But I think two or three years later, we're much more in the trench with our partners. We really do understand where they're going, where their outcomes are for space. We help them with frameworks and a systematic approach to drive high growth for a UK economy that is still to wake up to the full benefit of what space can do for citizens. - MOD, you mentioned Ministry of Defence, another partner of yours, and that just indicates how extensive the collaboration is across the UK Space Enterprise, and that's another bridge across to the United States side on in terms of an allied partnership. - Yeah, I mean, I have a fit in both camps. We call it PAN department, you call it interagency. So the agency, DCIT, MOD and some other departments are thinking about collaborative joint missions. And that's where our role is really quite key actually, because the Aerospace Corporation supports that type of activity back in the US. So I use the magic bridge between, the Atlantic Bridge as I call it, between Aerospace Actual and Aerospace Forward, that's in the UK. And I help my Whitehall colleagues and partners come up with the best modularity, whether it's in understanding tools, frameworks, advanced manufacturing, it's really making the space, software and capabilities tangible, because we've either already done it before and it's working, or we've got plans to do it together collectively. Now, I'm not gonna flush out the joint mission, maybe Matt might give you a little bit more on that, but he is the director of UK Launch. He's also a director that controls the UK's ambition on ISAM, and he's partnered with MOD and Space Command to do this joint mission. So it's obvious that they are dual purpose type activities that will benefit both the UK and the US. - It would be great to hear from Matt, Colin and Dave. What is the next thing folks should look for from the UK on space as our closing thought? - So if I pick one thing, I think keep your eyes peeled for a cross-government delivery plan in the spring of next year. It's a reflection of the work being done by the Department of Science and Innovation and Technology, the UK Space Agency, Space Command and so many other departments in the UK to really flesh out what it is we're gonna be doing over the next four to five years in practical terms for industry. So there will be no doubt left of where are we focusing our priorities. It's really about setting that kind of pathway that people really understand what we're up to and where we're investing our money. So for me, that's a really important part of what we've been doing in the agency, particularly on ISAM and Space Control. There will be more parts to that document, but it'll be really interesting to read, I think, for the international audience to know what we're up to. - Hello. - From my perspective, it's much more operationally focused. I'm expecting to see launches from the UK in order to do this in the future. I'm expecting to see some UK launchers launching from other countries potentially next year. I'm expecting to see more in-orbit missions coming forward. I've already got some American companies who are also looking at doing some in-orbit missions. So I think we'll see more on the applications front, but also from my team's perspective, we will be out regulating more on-site because as the set gets bigger, we will have that enduring relationship with most of our customers and orbital suppliers. So we'll be out and about a lot more on-site. - Dave, bring us on. - So I think my role will probably be to help the UK understand where UK investment works, not just internally within the sector in the UK, but with allies and partners. An example of that would be to try and find our sovereign strengths. And if we're talking about something that's significant, there's space sensors, maybe down to the components level, and then regionally where that's taking place in the UK, how we can connect those regions to, let's be clear, US regions because of the market opportunities that that sort of offers to scale. And then being able to create exportable IP, IP that flows backwards and forwards, right? Finally, get rid of this myth that, everything's ITAR tainted. And we did some of that work recently from our team, maybe six or seven months ago, where we had a look at AUKUS exemptions. Now, everybody gets excited when we talk about AUKUS, because that looks like an exclusive club. But what we've done is we've proven that those exemptions work through technology transfer. And if they work through technology transfer, it doesn't matter that it's an AUKUS club, it can be extended, extensible by technology. So that's what I'm gonna be focusing on for the next six to 18 months. - Thanks to my colleagues from the United Kingdom, Matt Archer, Colin McLeod and Dave Sandy. Thanks to all of you and T-minus for having us again. I'm Parker Wysiek, and we'll see you again next time in the Nexus. - We'll be right back. Welcome back. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single podcast host in possession of a good daily space Intel show must be in want of a mention of the ISS P tracker account on social media. Now, listen, if you don't know what I'm talking about, there's this real time ISS urine tank monitoring app available on your iOS and Mac OS devices, as well as on your favorite social media accounts. It is even available with immersive 3D visualization on your vision OS, if that is something you desire. And this app is spelled the letter P, ISS stream, put it all together. I'll give you a second. And as of time of this recording, the tank is currently at 60%. So if you've read Frank Herbert's Dune or seen any of its filmic or TV adaptations, you know that urine is a goldmine when you are in a water challenged environment. Little goes to waste in space, especially waste. Close to 98% of what the urine tank catches, one guess for you folks, is reclaimed and becomes potable water for the ISS crew. Mm-mm, good. Now, water kind of important for human longevity, but food, yeah, that still unfortunately needs to be sent up to the ISS. And that is a problem when we're talking about long duration missions one day. And sure, we are trying to learn how to grow what we need in space, but sustenance farming in space is definitely not gonna look like what you expect. Because what if, and now listen, listen, hear me out. What if we can easily grow a microbial protein in space that is supercharged by what's plentifully collected in space? Yeah, now ESA is looking into such a protein called solene as part of its Terrainove exploration program. Because using pee to make astronaut food for long duration missions, what do you think? It's not possible? No, it's necessary. 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 are 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're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpie is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thank you for listening. We'll see you on Wednesday. T-minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]