Quantum partnerships and life extension in orbit.

[MUSIC] Today is November 13th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] SFL Missions has been awarded a contract by GHGSAT to develop two additional commercial micro satellites for the GHGSAT greenhouse gas monitoring constellation. [MUSIC] SES has extended a multi-year multi-launch services agreement with Relativity Space. [MUSIC] SES and Infinite Orbits have signed an agreement for one geostationary satellite, life extension mission. [MUSIC] K-ROS UK has been selected by Raymetrics and the European Space Agency for the delivery of a quantum receiver for the observatories to optical ground stations project. [MUSIC] Voyager Technologies and Inflection have announced a strategic partnership to advance dual use quantum technology in low earth orbit and beyond. [MUSIC] And our guest today is Dr. Sarah Lynn Mark. Dr. Mark worked at NASA and has since founded iGiant, studying the impact of gender and sex on innovation and novel technologies. Stick around to find out more about her work after today's intelligence briefing. [MUSIC] Thank you for joining me on this Thursday. Let's get into it. First up, Voyager Technologies and Inflection have announced a new strategic partnership to advance dual use quantum technology in low earth orbit and beyond. The two companies plan to demonstrate advanced quantum technologies, beginning with the integration of inflections, tiger, quantum atomic clock, aboard the International Space Station, and then on Voyager's commercial space station, Starlab. The addition of an alternate high precision secure time source in space is expected to provide impact to both commercial and national security missions, including those associated with Golden Dome. They say it will enable autonomous spacecraft coordination and secure communications across constellations. Inflection has already contributed to NASA's cold atom lab, which is currently operating on the ISS. They plan to work with Voyager, building on that expertise, to extend quantum capabilities into the commercial era, powering a new generation of space born data, navigation, and sensing applications. UK based quantum technology company, Chyros UK, has been selected by Raymetrics and the European Space Agency for the delivery of a quantum receiver for the Observatories to Optical Ground Stations project. The project is upgrading three Greek astronomical observatories to operate as optical ground stations within the Hellenic Quantum Communication Initiative, with the aim to support quantum secure communications from space. Chyros will support the team led by Raymetrics to provide quantum receiver capabilities at one of the sites, allowing the delivery of quantum encryption keys from the Eagle One satellite. SES and Infinite Orbits have signed an agreement for one geostationary satellite life extension mission. This will be the first commercial life extension mission in Europe, and it will be carried out by Infinite Orbit's Endurance docking vehicle, which is designed for life extension missions. Endurance's launch is currently planned for late 2027 and is expected to dock with one SES geostationary satellite following an in orbit demonstration. This life extension vehicle has been designed to offer Infinite Orbits' clients a new generation of in orbit services, including station keeping, pointing management, orbital relocation, and end of life disposal. And in a related story, SES has extended a multi-year multi-launch services agreement with Relativity Space. The companies are partnering for multiple launches aboard the Terran-R that will bring selected SES satellites to their final orbital position. The expanded agreement includes previously unannounced SES launches, and Relativity Space's Terran-R is currently aiming for its first launch in late 2026 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. And over in Canada, SFL Missions has been awarded a contract by GHGSAT to develop two additional commercial microsatellites for the GHGSAT greenhouse gas monitoring constellation. GHGSAT C-18 and C-19 are being built, integrated and tested, at the SFL Missions facility in Toronto, where 37 satellites are currently under development for commercial, government, and research organizations worldwide. Once completed, the satellites will be transported to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for launch together on a SpaceX transporter mission. And that wraps up today's Intelligence Briefing for this Thursday, but there's always more stories that we are keeping an eye on. And 2K's senior producer Alice Carruth joins us now. Alice, what other stories are you following today? And where can we find out more about them? Thanks, Maria. We include links to the original sources of all the stories mentioned throughout our show in the selected reading section of our show notes. Today, we've included links to three extra stories, third times hopefully a charm for New Glenn, which may or may not have launched by the time we publish today. NATO held a meeting with industry to discuss Arctic Space Security and VAS to sign a cooperation agreement with us, Bekastan. We here at T-Minus do ask a lot of questions, and we bet that you do too. So is there something that you've been wondering about lately that you just need some answers to? Maybe a particularly confounding new technology concept or a hard to decipher bit of governmental regulation now that the government's back open again that could use some context or just like, what's the deal with? Dot, dot, dot. You fill that in, dear listener. I am positive that there's something on your mind, and we want to know what are you mulling over? What's the workplace debate of the day? 'Cause that could be a great topic for us to cover on T-Minus. So tell us about it. Space@N2K.com and thank you. [Music] Our guest today is Dr. Sarah Lynn Mark. Dr. Mark worked at NASA and has since founded iGiant, studying the impact of gender and sex on innovation and novel technologies. And I asked her what attracted her to work in space. I always wanted to be a doctor who practiced on the moon. You know, nice ambition to have before I realized that women were actually not allowed in the space program. So I am very fortunate that my parents let me believe in that. Illusion, delusion is what everyone would say. But it allowed me to follow what I was passionate about, and that was medicine and that certainly was, you know, space exploration. I was at NASA for 18 years, and I was the senior medical advisor in the office of the Chief Health Medical Officer. But I also had the good fortune to work with a couple of other directorates at NASA, including human exploration operations. Everything is an acronym in the government. Really, NASA, you know, just takes the cake with it. But I also worked in OVPR. So it was an office of physical and biological research as well. And in those years, I had the good fortune of working with just brilliant individuals, incredible, incredible folks who I get to work with now through my company, Solamance Solutions. So there's continuity. You know, I always see, you never quite leave the agency. But I had the opportunity certainly to work on space medicine related issues, to launch two decadal reviews, to assess the impact of sex and gender on how the body adapts in space. We know human factors are certainly really important here on Earth, and they're definitely important in space. Because again, as the body adapts, very small changes have huge profound impact. I also had the opportunity to work in what was generally considered occupational health, public health. And when people think of NASA, they think of the astronaut corps. And that certainly is the shining light for the program. But there's over 17,000 employees that keep that agency running. And so for the Office of the Chief Health Medical Officer, we were charged with keeping people healthy. So I had that opportunity. And then because I was also the medical advisor at US Department of Health and Human Services and the civilian medical advisor to two surgeons general, I was very familiar with some of our public health issues. And as you know, during the 2000s, we've had quite a few pandemics. And we've had a few outbreaks. So I was able to help guide the agency to navigate some challenging ones. So it was just an amazing career because I got to do what I loved, working with brilliant people and serving not only the astronaut corps, but our health here on Earth. And you're not done yet. I was gonna say, you're still doing cool things too. What an incredible career you've had already though. I'm curious, given the incredible viewpoint that you have, both with your career and your different organizations, what are you really excited about right now? You know, during times of chaos, you have to look for our windows of opportunity. And I am excited about what we don't know 'cause we're gonna now have to go out and find it and then try to find ways to utilize it so it benefits humanity. So for example, with Solimath Solutions, we're launching a seven part virtual round table series on bioethics and space medicine. And I'm so excited about that because the commercial sector is really gonna take flight. It already has and it's only amplified. But a lot of the questions that we're asking regarding ethics and bioethics, they haven't been answered. So we're gonna bring together leading experts across those different stakeholders to begin to ask the questions and hopefully answer them, which then eventually impacts policy and hopefully impacts the way that we conduct our missions so that it's safety and mission assurance. And so I'm very, very excited about that part of it. We're also looking at launching space explorer summits, interactive workshops. Love to have them in Colorado where you can utilize the environment around you. Certainly for space explorers, people who wanna fly, but also for space enthusiasts, those who are just intrigued. And then the other part of it is I wanna be able to utilize these environments for underserved communities so that we get our children and also adults involved so that space belongs to everyone. One of my concerns is that because the commercial world has been pretty much catering more towards a higher economic sector, some people may feel disenfranchised. And I know for you and me, we were part of it. We just thought we could do it. And I wanna ensure that the next generation also has that same passion. That's a wonderful goal to have. And I echo your sentiments entirely. I think that's making sure that it's available for everybody and that everyone feels that they can be a part of it is so crucial. 'Cause if you self-select out, then it's over, yeah, from the start. And there's tech transfer. And most people don't realize that some of the technology from the Hubble telescope, we've actually utilized it for breast imaging in our mRNA devices. It's incredible. So I wanna see more of that because again, the public is investing in the space program. The space program is to me the crown jewel of our government. And that's hard to say 'cause I came from a couple other-- - All the really good ones too, yes. - Wonderful ones. But it really, it just inspires. And I want the public to own it because they are paying for it. It belongs to them. - I think I asked you a while ago about sort of the future of human space exploration and what's possible. And what you think is possible and maybe not quite as possible given what we know about how humans react in the space environment. - We're limited by our imagination. - Yeah. - Though in a sense, you know the answer is already incorrect because we're limited by our three dimensions that we operate in. I think what I would love to see is that we truly do these exploration class missions. The challenges we have is, we have to deal with radiation exposure. Some of the muscle and bone we're contending with with physical activity, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals. So we probably will get that pretty much taken care of. But it's the radiation exposure. We've had several solar flares or what we call coronal mass ejections. And if you're out there and you're not protected by your Van Allen belts and the vehicle that you're in, this could be a really big challenge. And we're gonna probably even have to address it more and more on the lunar surface if we go and we set up settlements. I do want us to be able to go off the planet. And I think part of that is when you think about you, for example, when you travel, you go to somewhere exotic, in a sense you can't wait to come home. You wanna share those experiences, but you also have a new appreciation of what you've been through. And I think for us being able to go to other heavenly bodies other celestial bodies will give us a greater appreciation of this planet and how we need to protect it. The commercial world, I think will certainly lead the way, but we do need our agencies again. You know, it's that ROI. - Yeah. - Make your time, you're not dealing with it. Although we're all technically shareholders. (laughing) - Yes. - We're not expecting it is a business proposition, but for it to be done safely and accurately, scientifically. So it's that public-private partnership. And then the other part of it, risk. Let's talk about risk. We will assume risk when there's something huge at stake. For example, if we have an object coming towards us and we need to figure, I always think of that movie, was it Armageddon? - Yes, I didn't wanna say it, but yes, that's. (laughing) - Well, we mobilize our forces and we try to do what we can do. So again, that risk benefit analysis. And then if you were to ask a lot of astronauts, would you be willing to go to Mars and experience significant radiation load where you may be putting your own health at risk? You probably would get folks raising their hands. And it really, I think goes back to the nature of humanity. Think about what we did to explore this planet. And they didn't have the bounty of knowing what was possibly dangerous and deleterious. Some thought they were gonna fall off the planet. It was just a little disk. But I think it's just part of our human spirit. And as global warming and climate change, and again, words we're not supposed to talk about, we're gonna have to think about how do we ensure humanity continues. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) We will be right back. Welcome back. There are some truly elegant solutions out there being tested for space debris, capturing it and snaring it, if you will, and nabbing it with super advanced arms. I mean, valid. We do need those capabilities. But let's also be real about what we call space debris, and space trash in it. So what do you do with trash? You throw it out. You toss it in a garbage bag. So yeah, no surprise that there's also a startup working on space debris removal that uses the good old garbage bag method, but in space, of course, so it's fancy. And that startup is California-based Trans Astra. And it has been working on its inflatable capture bag, which is a scalable system designed to trap space rocks or get orbital debris. No need for nifty robotic arms in this case. Just grab the garbage in the bag. And the company recently tested a prototype aboard the ISS and is now building a 10 meter version backed by $5 million in NASA and private funding. And the goal is to keep making bigger and bigger bags in order to capture things like defunct satellites and even maybe one day asteroids up to 100 tons in size. And once those items are in the bag, literally, they can be processed for materials while still on orbit. Yes, so in space recycling, founder of Trans Astra, Joel Sursell, says their technology addresses core challenges for space debris removal, as well as nabbing small asteroids for mining and processing. And while it could absolutely help clean up orbits around Earth, it could potentially enable in space resource extraction too. So imagine mining tiny asteroids, not by delicately grasping them with the most advanced of robotics, but by putting them in a bag and then processing them entirely in orbit. And I should note that Trans Astra is already scoping out near-Earth asteroids for retrieval and processing with the goal of nabbing one by 2028. (upbeat 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. You can also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to us at 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 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. - T-minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]