Today is December 11th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. T-minus. 22nd to LOS, T-dred. Open aboard. T-minus. T-minus. T-minus. T-minus. Four. Three. Three. Two. Two. DARPA has awarded BAE a Phase 2 contract to advance autonomous space-based surveillance. One. Star Cloud has successfully trained and run the first large AI model in space. We are on, girls. We are on. Lift off. Lift off. And our guest today is Jerome Hiddle, CEO and founder at Amplified Space. We're going to be discussing software-defined power systems and learning more about all of their upcoming missions after today's headlines. So stick around to find out more. Happy Thursday, everybody. Thank you for joining me today. It's been the race to space within the race to space in the commercial industry right now. What am I talking about? Orbital data centers, of course. And Star Cloud, a Washington-based startup backed by NVIDIA, has successfully trained and run the first large AI model in space. Abort its Star Cloud 1 satellite, equipped with a powerful NVIDIA H100 GPU. And this GPU is reportedly 100 times more capable than any chip previously sent into orbit. And it's now running models like Google's Gemma and even training nano-GPT with Shakespeare's works of all things, all far above the planet's surface. So why do any of this in space at all? Well, the answer to this lies in scale and sustainability. And it's why space-based orbital data centers are so hot right now. Traditional data centers on Earth consume massive amounts of power and water, straining local energy grids and creating environmental concerns to pull it mildly. Star Cloud's vision is to move this energy-hungry computing all into orbit, where continuous solar power and natural cooling in the vacuum of space could dramatically reduce costs and environmental impact. And they're even planning gigawatt-scale orbital data centers that might one day rival terrestrial server farms. And we do predict that orbital data centers are going to be the biggest trend of 2026, not a stretch there at all. Still, and congratulations to Star Cloud for being the first with their large AI model. We gotta wonder who's next. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known to most of us as DARPA, has awarded BAE Systems Fast Labs Research Development and Production Organization a $16 million Phase 2 contract for the Oversight Program. And the Oversight Program, you might be asking, is focused on creating an autonomous system that keeps track or maintains constant custody of a large number of terrestrial assets via new satellite constellations. And this contract is a follow-on from Phase 1, during which BAE system software was integrated into a modeling and simulation environment to demonstrate a custody mission on representative satellite and sensor models. In Phase 2, BAE Systems plans to mature its solution algorithms and demonstrate operation with increasingly larger constellations, more complex scenarios, and higher fidelity modeling and simulation environments. The technology will eventually be physically deployed to both tactical edge satellites and ground stations. Firefly Aerospace will host Volta Space Technology's wireless power receiver on Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 2 lander that'll go to the far side of the moon. The payload will serve as a technology demonstration for Volta's planned lunar power network called Light Grid. Qualification testing for the fully stacked Blue Ghost and Elytra spacecraft structure is well underway for Blue Ghost Mission 2. The team has also begun assembling flight hardware and has accepted and tested a majority of the payloads at Firefly's spacecraft facility. If you can believe it, the second Blue Ghost mission is expected to launch in late 2026, and I for one cannot wait. And Hawkeye 360 has announced a multi-year contract valued at more than $100 million with an unnamed international partner. Under the five-year agreement with this unnamed partner, aforementioned partner will receive access to Hawkeye's advanced radio frequency data and analytics with options to scale collection capacity and integrate regional ground infrastructure. The agreement is designed to enhance mission delivery and strengthen tactical operational support across key client mission domains, and as part of the agreement Hawkeye will deploy dedicated satellite clusters with full operational capability in early 2027. And here is another example of how space-based technology is improving life for us here on Earth. The European Space Agency satellite operator ViASAT and aerospace company Boeing have been testing space-based technology with new aviation standards from and to the United States and Europe. Boeing aircraft have been using the IRIS satellite-based system to digitally connect pilots via satellites with air traffic controllers, enabling the more efficient routing of flights and reducing the fuel consumed. The IRIS service and communications system developed by ViASAT in partnership with ESA with ESSP as service provider and a wide industrial consortium of European and Canadian companies has been fully operational in European aerospace since 2024 with more than 17,000 flights so far and counting. So this partnership with Boeing paves the way to make IRIS more global. So the next time your flight lands a little earlier than the schedule said, you might want to thank a satellite system for making it so. [Music] And that my friends wraps up today's Intel briefing. But if you want to read more about space-based technology in aviation or any of the other stories that were mentioned in today's episode, head on over to the links in the selected reading section of the show notes. Speaking of, N2K Senior Producer Alice Carruth joins us now with a look at the other stories that we have included in there today for you. Alice, what are you looking at? Hey Maria, momentous has been selected to participate in the Missile Defense Agency's Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layer Defense, or SHIELD, indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract vehicle. This designation positions momentous to compete for rapid task orders supporting technology demonstrations, missile tracking, resilient communications and other national defense missions. And adding to today's top story, we've included a Wall Street Journal article on the race to bring data centers to space. It really is the hottest thing in the industry right now. IT-Mindus Crew, if you are going to be at Space Week in Orlando coming up in late January, and that includes the Global Space Port Alliances Annual Summit, Space Mobility and Spacecom, we will be there also. So if you would like to speak with us during the event, we have a microphone and we do travel. Drop us a line at space@n2k.com so we can set something up. And thanks. [Music] Our guest today is Jerome Hiddle, CEO and founder at Amplified Space. Jerome started off by telling me more about his background. [Music] Well, I started my career back in high school working at Johnson Space Center, scanning in pictures of the moon rocks as they were going from paper systems to digital systems. And as you know, that just was the first door of many doors that opened, right? And I ended up working on four deep spacecraft. One is a technician and then three as an engineer. And so I was able to develop power systems that are actually on the surface of Mars and orbiting Jupiter. And so that's really where I kind of got my start. But I really got bored of what, you know, the old space and like it takes forever to develop this. And so I left space for a while, worked in Internet of Things, developing LED lighting systems for commercial applications, and then also worked with a company that was doing integrated circuits to be able to electrify vehicles. And so I've always had like this, let's change humanity sort of background in everything I do. Wow. I was going to say just what you got bored of would for many people be kind of the pinnacle of their career. You're kind of like, yeah, my stuff's on a bunch of other planets, it's fine. And I got bored of that. That's okay, but that's awesome because that ambition and that fire in the belly, so to speak, that is a great thing for an entrepreneur to have. And getting bored and being like, I want to do something way, like I want to build on that. That's how great things are made. So, and that's what you're working on right now, right? Yeah, we're working on, you know, I took the experience from all three of those disciplines and said, "How can I build a company around this?" You know, I've got the aerospace background, I've learned about digital control systems at the LED lighting company, and I've also learned about how this new GAN transistor technology is coming about in the integrated circuit community. And I thought, well, how do I pull all these technologies together? And that's where I met Jamie, our chief operating officer. And I said, "Jamie, what do I do with this?" At the time, she was working with a small business development center at Boulder, and she said, "You have to put in an application to NASA for this." And I said, "Okay." And so I did and won the very first SBIR proposal I ever put out. And, you know, as they say, the rest is history. All right, so that brings us to amplified space then. So, yes, please give me the pitch. Tell me about it. So, we developed software configurable power systems for spacecraft. We have a single piece of hardware that we can program with software to be able to connect this to your batteries, your solar rays, your power supplies, your propulsion system, your motor, your reaction wheels, your flight computer. You know, the list goes on, but we're able to scale because it's a single piece of hardware that we can connect to all of those things. And so we're able to rapidly produce and have our customers kind of software configure it to whatever they want to want it to be in their application. Can you paint a picture for me of sort of what you all are doing is disrupting something, right? So what did it look like before? Like, what is the thing that you all are sort of fixing? Yeah, so if you were to go to one of our competitors, they'd say, "Oh, you need the solar ray card. You need this battery card. You need this power supply card. You need the switch card." You know, and there's all these different components and stuff, and your engineers have to understand exactly how each one of those work. And there's risks there because there's software that's different on every one of them. And we have a very -- a software that is 70% like unified between each one of our applications because our hardware never changes. And so we're able to, you know, really disrupt what everybody else is doing in a couple of different ways. That's awesome. So you're streamlining and also reducing complexity, which is always the goal for a better more efficient system, I would imagine. So tell me about those. Yeah, so we have -- we've delivered this year for three flights. One was with a company called Hex 20 out of India that we've been doing a lot of work with, and they're developing their own bus. We're really excited to see where they're going to. Our second flight is with portal space systems where we're doing an orbit demonstration on their MiniNOVA platform. They've got several of these in their spacecraft, and they're flying it in Q1 next year. And then our third opportunity is with the International Space Station. We're working with Aegis Aerospace and with the International Space Station to deliver this, and it'll be on its Missy platform. And we're actually wrapping that up today, as a matter of fact. Oh my gosh. So, yeah, and so they fly out on Thursday, and then they're flying and integrating on Friday, and everything's going really well there and stuff. But we have three flights next year, and for a company our size with only 10 people or so, that's really an accomplishment, and I'm really proud of what our team's done this year. Absolutely it is. That's incredible. Three flights with a team of 10 people. And yes, as you mentioned, I've spoken to Jeff at portal a couple of times, and their stuff is very, very cool. So that you're working with them is to me a hugely validating thing for the incredible thing that you all are also building, because I know Jeff is very visionary, and he knows good stuff when he sees it. So that's so great. I'm super happy for you. That's awesome. I mean, I'll just tell you a little quick anecdote story between me and Jeff. I don't know if it'll make the final cut, but Jeff and I, you know, the first time we talked to each other, it was like, what are you doing? You know, he's like, we're doing this. I said, well, we're doing this and we're both like, you just see the fireworks going like, we see how disruptive each one of us is and like how it's just going to change how everybody does it in the future. And, you know, it was just super fireworks. I love what they're doing. I'm always looking for customers, especially the and really partners, not so much customers, but partners that are really disrupting things because I know that we can go far with them and they can go far with us. And so we're always looking for those sorts of capabilities and who we work with. That's awesome. Yeah. And truly the three missions you have coming up, those are all extremely exciting. And the fact that you're wrapping one up right now, I'm extraordinarily appreciative that you took some time to talk to me with all that going on, because I imagine you all are crazy busy. So I won't waste your time, but I'm dying to know about your long term vision for amplified space, like what success looks like for you all, what you're looking towards in the long term future. You know, I want to disrupt the industry. I want to be part of what that looks like. I want to have our families going to space in the long term, right? The technology we develop here is part of that story. It's not the complete story, of course, but it is part of that story. And I think the whole industry has to kind of come together so that we can continue to build that, right? And we're always looking for partners to kind of get to that next level too. And, you know, all those partners, like it's an interesting array and matrix of all these different companies doing all these different things. But, you know, that old analogy of the rising tide lifts all ships is certainly true in this industry. [Music] We'll be right back. [Music] Welcome back. There's a bit of a Martian mystery going on with NASA's MAVEN mission at the moment. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN Orbiter, around, you guessed it, Mars, recently celebrated 10 successful years on the job. But NASA reports just a few days ago on December 6th, after orbiting behind Mars, MAVEN then stopped communications with the home base and just has not re-established sending telemetry as expected. And I should note, before all this happened, MAVEN was working just nominally, so this is all a bit sudden and unexpected. Right now, NASA teams are investigating the root cause and hoping to re-establish a signal from MAVEN ASAP, because MAVEN is the way that the Mars rover's signals are relayed from the Martian surface back to Earth also. So we kind of need it up and running. Hope MAVEN's just having a temporary loss of voice as I have been struggling with lately and will be on the mend soon. [Music] And that's Team IONUS 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 and 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 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]
