Today is December 1st, 2025. I'm Alice Carruth and this is T-minus. T-minus. 22nd to LOS, T-dred. Open aboard. T-minus. T-minus. T-minus. 20 seconds to LOS, T-dred. Open aboard. Open aboard. Open aboard. Two launched and arrived at the International Space Station on Thanksgiving Day. Three. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched on November 28th from Vandenberg for the transport of 15 mission. Two. Europe's Vegas-y rocket launched and advanced Korean Earth observation satellite from French Guiana. One. The United States committed 22.1 billion euros in contributions at the annual ministerial meeting. Zero zero. Zero zero. Lift off. Later in the programme, Bailey Rykelton, Matthew Linton will be tackling Space Law FAQs. This month they're going to be dealing with new and expanded language in the context of export controls and international agreements. If you deal with that in any way, shape or form, then you won't want to miss it. Happy Monday everyone and for our US listeners, I hope you enjoyed a food filled extended Thanksgiving weekend. We've got a lot to catch up on since our last daily programme, so let's dive in. Just before Thanksgiving break, the European Space Agency's member states, associate members and co-operating states convened a ministerial council meeting. Thanks to the trends we're seeing led by Germany and France, the outcome of the meeting was expected to see an increase in spending and plans for more sovereign capabilities from the continent, and the results did not disappoint. The council approved the largest contributions in the history of the European Space Agency, 22.1 billion euros. That's over 25.7 billion US dollars to those of us not keeping up with the currency exchange. This year's ministerial council was the first stage of the implementation of ESA's Strategy 2040, setting the course for European space ambitions and defining the objectives that must be met to achieve long-term goals for Europe's activities in space and in applications on Earth. The funding is expected to focus on three areas, Earth observation, navigation and telecommunications. ESA says these three elements are fundamental to the European resilience from space initiative, a joint response to critical space needs, insecurity and resilience. We'll be monitoring when the Space Agency commits funding to projects in the coming months. And staying with Europe, a Vegas-y rocket launched today from French Guiana. The rocket carried South Korea's ComSat 7 spacecraft into orbit. ComSat 7, which stands for Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite 7, will provide high-resolution satellite images for South Korea's government and institutions. The VV-28 mission took off from French Guiana at 2.21pm local time. It's not the only satellite launched by the South Koreans over the last few days. Last Thursday, they launched their largest satellite yet on a nationally developed space rocket called Nuri. It was the fourth of six missions planned through 2027. The three-stage Nuri rocket lifted off from a spaceport on an island off the southwest coast. Aerospace officials said the rocket placed the satellite and 12 micro-satellites into a target orbit around 372 miles above Earth. The country's science minister said that the successful launch reaffirmed that South Korea had independent space launch and transport capability. And staying with launch news, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched on November 28 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for the transport of 15 mission. On board this mission were 140 payloads. Amazing. That included CubeSats, MicroSats, Hosted payloads and orbital transfer vehicles carrying 13 of those payloads to be deployed at a later time. A key mission manager for the transport of 15 was ExoLaunch, which deployed 59 customer satellites from the Falcon 9's upper stage. Those payloads included the T-Microsat-1 from Taiwan's Tron FutureTech, Spin-2, a European space agency backed CubeSat made primarily by Italian company Space Products & Innovation, and US-based Carewethers' V-RiZeroG Brendon Satellite. And let's also catch up on the other launches that happened over Thanksgiving. A new crew launched and arrived at the International Space Station on Thanksgiving Day. A Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft carrying three members boarded the ISS on Thursday, November 27. The spacecraft arrived at the orbiting lab's Rasmell module at 7.34am. It carried one NASA astronaut and two Roscosmos cosmonauts. The trio will spend approximately eight months aboard the space station before returning to Earth in summer 2026. But it wasn't all mission success for the new space station crew, at least not for those left behind. Russia's only crewed mission launch site has suffered major damage following last Thursday's Soyuz rocket launch. The Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will be unable to host launches until repairs are made, according to the space agency Roscosmos. It's the first time in decades that Russia has lost the ability to send people to space. Roscosmos shared the footage of the launch and later shared images on social media, which showed part of the launch pad collapse into an exhaust trench below as a result of the rocket's blast. Roscosmos told state media that "the launch complex's condition is currently being assessed and all necessary backup components are available for restoration. The damage is expected to be repaired in the near future." [Music] That wraps up today's Intel Briefing. Stay with us for more on Space Law FAQs and the latest on the Chapea mission. You'll find links to further reading on all the articles mentioned throughout the episode in the selected reading section of today's show notes. A lot of people are listening to podcasts through YouTube and if that's the way you'd prefer to listen to this show, well, good news for everyone. Team Miner Space is indeed on YouTube. We post our episodes there along with video clips from interviews and events throughout the year. So if you're dual screening at work and keep the YouTube player going all day while your head's down, listen, I get it, I'm not judging. @N2KCyber is our company's YouTube channel and you'll find the T-Minus Space Daily playlist there along with the other shows we make here at N2K. Again, that's @N2KCyber on YouTube. [Music] [Music] I'll hand you over now to Bailey Reichelt and Matthew Linton for the Space Law FAQs. [Music] Welcome back this week to Space Law FAQs. I'm one of your hosts, Bailey Raichel. My background's in Space Law. I'm a regulatory attorney and here's my co-host, Matt Linton. Hi, Bailey. Thank you, Matt Linton. My firm is Linton Space Law. I focus on outside general counsel work and all of the pieces in between for early stage space, AI, and deep tech companies. So, this episode, we are focused on a trend that we are seeing that deals with new and expanded language in the context of export controls in international agreements. And this is something that is easy to look over in these contracts, but it is critical to pay attention to. And I would like to ask you, Bailey, when you are seeing these expanded provisions, some of them are very difficult to work with. And let me give you an example from a contract that we've recently seen. Among the various language you would see about compliance with different countries' export controls and things like that, some of these more aggressive contracts are including provisions that would say something like, in the event that there is some issue that you, the seller, would have to replace or modify restricted technology of the deliverables. How practically does anyone comply with a open-ended requirement like replace the technology to comply with export control without knowing what they're going to need to do should that occur? This could be very costly, it seems, if not impossible. What do you think? Yeah, so I'm seeing this language get flowed down to US suppliers on mostly European contracts. I just want to be clear, it's commercial contracts. This is not government contracting because that'd be a totally different conversation if it were US like Fars and DFars. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about international buy-sell agreements. Normally, I see really boilerplate terms about complying with the international law of whatever country you're doing business with. So if you have a US person and a French person, they both agree that they're going to comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the French version of anti-corruption, they're going to comply with the ITAR and EAR, they're going to list all the citations and say that non-compliance with these is perhaps a termination for a default reason. That's what I normally see. We skim right over and say, "Yes, yes, everyone must follow the laws. If you don't follow the laws, that's a problem." But yeah, the language you just paraphrased in the event that an export or import authorization is not obtained or revoked, and it's attributable to a supplier's fault or simple negligence, the suppliers shall, at its own cost, within a timeframe compatible with the delivery schedule, take actions to obtain from the relevant administration any required authorization or replace or modify the restricted technology or parts of the deliverable and/or the work. That's crazy. No, no, that's brutal. So, I mean, it sounds like one of the things you said here was simple negligence, which our listeners may not be as attuned to. What is meant by simple negligence as a concept in the law and a contract here, and why does that matter? Well, it's going to depend on the law that's governing the contract or if we have defined terms within the contract. But in general, if you go to law school, you talk about negligence in different terms. In contracts, we mostly see gross negligence. So, if someone allows gross negligence to occur and someone gets hurt, we see indemnification and liability provisions. This is common. If you go Control-F, any contract you have, you probably see the phrase gross negligence. We don't see simple negligence that often. I actually, I looked up simple negligence, just like a lay definition. It's failure to exercise ordinary care. But the thing that's weird here is like, what is failure to exercise ordinary care in the context of applying for an export license? Does that mean like you submitted it with only three months lead time, but you really should have had four? I mean, that's the best I can figure. But like, it's such a subjective determination. I mean, what would you think would happen if you had a breach of contract claim on this provision and you had to go argue it in court? Yeah, I think this would be quite difficult. And as you mentioned, you know, it generally speaking, negligence should be an objective standard, right? What's that kind of general community standard? But when we're, when you talk about something here like simple negligence, it effectively becomes almost bespoke to the particular situation and loses sight of what would be potential industry norms, even if those existed. You know, like you said, just look at the pure timing of filing something that can vary wildly and may or may not have anything to do with any sort of negligence whatsoever. It could just be that the company just has a hot new product and they've got it on the market quickly. And so the license request came closer toward the need to ship than one otherwise would have done. And so it becomes, you know, something that is almost impossible to reconcile. And ultimately from the client perspective, that's not what you want in a contract, right? Because that means you're paying lawyers to figure out something that may or may not even be something they could figure out to begin with. And so you're going to put yourself into a world where you're not actually solving any problems with this sort of language. You're in fact creating problems. And I think from our perspective, you know, we would look at this for clients, right? And more in the sense of how do you resolve a dispute if there is a dispute? And how do you put in the language that might help move things forward without going to whoever thinks somebody has committed, quote, simple negligence or not? Which again, putting negligence in itself into contract language always is problematic. You know, contracts are about the contractual language. You try to avoid having to deal with negligence determinations, which is tort law. We don't want that in contracts. So suggestion or thought here for, you know, Bailey, how would you look at dealing with this kind of language? Especially, let's say it's an important buyer, right? An important buyer US company is selling to. And they get this kind of language. What do you think, you know, the approach should be? I think the immediate approach is strike it and go back to your standard export provisions. We'll all obey the law to the best of our ability. But if the US government will not authorize the export, it should lead to some way to save everyone, right? A termination provision. And it could really make the contract untenable. There is another section of this that I think is really important to point out is that what they ask you to do, if you can't get your authorization and you can't get it on a time frame compatible with the schedule, is they basically tell you, well, go try and get it again, or replace or modify the restricted technology or parts of the deliverable and/or the work. So it seems like they're saying, if you can't comply with the normal administrative process in your country to fulfill this contract, we're not letting you off the hook. You're not off the hook. You have to, what I'm interpreting as re-engineer your product or rewrite the technology, and in this case, in export controls, it's probably talking about a document, like a drawing or a manual or something. You have to replace it or modify whatever technology you're not getting the authorization for so that you can get the authorization or that you don't need one. And so my interpretation of that is they're saying, we don't really care what the US government says. You need to find a way around it to make this contract work. That's what I read this to say, and that's just not a good provision to agree to. Yeah, the costs for trying to comply could be more than the entire value of the contract, which without things like caps or better dispute resolution really are problematic. And so I guess I think our takeaway is when looking at new agreements with your customers that are international, it is of paramount importance to really pay attention to these kinds of provisions that could come back to haunt your company. And often they are negotiable, but they're not negotiable after you sign it. Yeah, absolutely. Great takeaway match. Guys, I don't know how many times I'll have to say this, but read your contracts. We'll be right back. Welcome back. While we're on the topic of catching up on news, during the US government shutdown, the Chippewa 2 mission started. NASA's Chippewa 2 crew officially began their stay inside the agency's simulated Mars habitat at Johnson Space Center on October the 19th. It's the agency's second 378-day simulated Mars mission, and will be a one-four-year stay designed to mimic what life on the Red Planet might be really like. Now imagine moving into a new home, except your new home is 1,700 square feet of 3D-printed walls, sealed airlocks, and a whole lot of red dust simulations. And your roommates, three other people who signed up to eat shelf-stable food and troubleshoot habitat anomalies for fun. Honestly, we salute them. The Chippewa habitat called Mars June Alpha will test how crews might live, work and stay healthy on a long duration stay on Mars. Think crop growing, habitat maintenance, stressful delays in communications and simulated EVAs, all while relying on space-to-earth-style networked systems that mirror what future astronauts will use. Why do we care? Well, these analog missions help NASA design the connectivity, logistics and life support networks that make real-off-world living possible. Every sense-a-ping, every comms delay, every resource tracking system inside the habitat is data that will shape the future Mars digital infrastructure. So congratulations and good luck to the Chippewa 2 crew. And remember, if your biggest worry today is a slow Wi-Fi connection, at least you're not expecting one with a 20-minute Mars latency. I wonder if they get the old dial-up tone to go with it. And that's it for T-miners, 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 the show, and we really do hope you do, 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 me at 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 cyber 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. 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. Our host is Maria Varmazis and I'm senior producer Alice Carruth. Thanks for listening. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
