[MUSIC PLAYING] Today is December 18, 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] [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC PLAYING] Five. Two new micro propulsion technologies are being tested in space on board a CubeSat called Duplex. Four. Southern Launch and Lux Eterna have signed an agreement to conduct orbital re-entries of Lux Eterna's reusable satellite infrastructure to the Kuniba test range. Three. Redwire Corporation has been contracted by the Exploration Company to provide two docking systems for NICS. Two. Rocket Lab launched the STP S-30 mission for the US Space Forces Space Systems Command. One. Jared Isaacman has been confirmed as the new NASA administrator. Let's go. [MUSIC PLAYING] Later in the program, we're going to be hearing about the incredible lineup for commercial space we come in up in Florida. I am super excited about this year's keynote, and-- spoiler alert, my inner child cannot contain herself-- want to know who I'm talking about and who else is speaking at the Global Space Support Alliance annual summit, Space Mobility and SpaceCom? Well, stick around to find out more from the executive director, Ryan Brown, after today's headlines. [MUSIC PLAYING] Happy Thursday, everyone. Thank you for joining me. It does feel very apt to be quoting Charles Dickens at this time of year. You know, it was the best of times. It was the worst of times, though. Technically, I should be ending on the best of times again when referring to the NASA administrator role. Because after a, shall we say, turbulent past 12 months-- yes, if you can believe it, December 2024 was when Jared Isaacman was first nominated for the NASA lead role. Finally, finally, Jared Isaacman has been confirmed as the new NASA administrator. The US Senate approved the appointment of the billionaire investor and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead the US space agency by a large margin of 67 to 30. There are a lot of expectations on Isaacman's shoulders. He has promised to lead the agency to win the new space race back to the moon, lead the United States on to Mars, and his support for space science research has many people hoping that he will reverse some of the cutbacks for programs such as Mars sample return. Well, only time will tell. The NASA administrator role will be Isaacman's first job in politics, and he succeeds Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, who has served as interim NASA chief since July. Officially, welcome to NASA, Jared Isaacman. Moving on now, Rocket Lab launched the STP S-30 mission for the US Space Force's Space Systems Command a little after midnight, local time Eastern. The launch was named Don't Be Such a Square. And let's admit it, Rocket Lab does have the best mission names. And the mission lifted off from Rocket Lab launch complex two at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Space Port, better known as Mars, on Wallops Island, Virginia. The mission deployed for disk sat spacecraft to a 550 kilometer low Earth orbit for the Department of War's space test program. The spacecraft are managed by SSC's System Delta 89 Capability Development Branch and were developed by our partners at the Aerospace Corporation and funded by NASA. Disk sat is a proposed alternative to CubeSat satellites to improve the build integration and cost of future small satellite missions and unlock new possibilities across commercial, government, and defense applications. The launch was also, we should note, an impressive five months ahead of schedule. Congratulations to all involved. Redwire Corporation has entered into an agreement with the Exploration Company, or TEC, to provide two docking systems for TEC's spacecraft called NICS. Through an eight-figure deal, Redwire's state-of-the-art docking system, known as the International Burthing and Docking Mechanism, will support future autonomous rendezvous and docking capabilities for NICS, contributing to Europe's goal of strengthening autonomous access to space. The Redwire system is developed in Belgium in collaboration with international partners and the European Space Agency and is also supported by the Redwire office in Poland. Demonstration flights for NICS are expected in the next few years. And let's head on down under for our next story, as Australia's Southern Launch and LuxEterna have signed an agreement to conduct orbital re-entries of LuxEterna's reusable satellite infrastructure to the Kuniba test range. The partnership aims to support the future of space manufacturing and operations with rapid, reliable and flexible access to orbit, enabling governments, businesses, and research organizations to maximize the benefits of the space economy. Under the agreement, the two LuxEterna Delphi satellites will return to the Kuniba test range with Southern Launch, and the first mission is targeted to return in 2027. Two new micro propulsion technologies are being tested in space onboard a CubeSat called Duplex. And Duplex stands for Dual Propulsion Experiment and has been deployed into low Earth orbit from the International Space Station on December 2. The CubeSat is fitted with two thruster systems that use spools of polymer fibers to provide performance levels of propulsion comparable to existing systems but with greater safety during assembly and more affordability. And one of the propulsion technologies is a fiber-fed pulsed plasma thruster system, which uses an electric pulse to vaporize Teflon material and then uses the resulting ions to deliver strong, efficient thrust while using very little fuel. The other propulsion technology is a monofilament vaporization propulsion system, inspired by 3D printers in case you were imagining that, which heats and vaporizes a common polymer material known as Delrin to create continuous thrust. Both experiments are being conducted by NASA with commercial partners and it all aims to create reliable propulsion systems that will help small spacecraft safely maneuver in orbit, reach intended destinations across the solar system, and accomplish mission operations. And we will keep you updated on their progress. (upbeat music) And that my friends wraps up today's Intel Briefing. And 2K senior producer Alice Carruth joins me now with a look at the other stories making today's headlines. Alice, what do you have for us today? - Hi Maria, we've included two additional stories in today's selected reading section. Bloomberg has a great art-core and relativity that I think you'll enjoy, and Max Spaces unveiled plans for a new commercial space station. I'm looking forward to learning more about the Thunderbird station as more details are shared. - Hi there, whether you have been listening to T-minus from the very start or if this is your very first episode tuning in, I wanna thank you for listening. And if you like what we're doing here at T-minus, your support will help us grow and bring you more of the insights and guest interviews that you enjoy. So if you could take a moment and leave us a five-star rating and short review in whatever podcast app you use, I would appreciate that so much. In your review, tell us about your favorite can't miss monthly segment, like the insightful team at the Aerospace Corporation always delivering great in-depth chats with the monthly Nexus segment. Details like that really do help us make the show even better for you. And I wouldn't be much of a podcast host if I didn't drop an obligatory like and subscribe now and then after all. So please do and thank you. (upbeat music) - While we are coming up fast on the end of the calendar year, we are also quickly approaching commercial space week in Florida. And if you don't have plans to join, then why not? We're gonna be there recording chats with some of the greats from across the global space industry. And I'll let our next guest share more about the keynotes shortly. And you can sign up to join us for the Global Space Port Alliance Annual Summit, Space Mobility Conference and SpaceCom starting on January 27th and running through January 30th, 2026 by going to spacecomxpo.com. Our next guest, Ryan Brown, has more details. - Yeah, my name is Ryan Brown. I'm the Executive Director of SpaceCom. I also manage the Space Mobility Conference and work very closely with the Global Space Port Alliance and their Space Port Summit. All three events together make up Commercial Space Week, which is coming up here at the end of January. - That's right, yes. And that is what we are here to talk about, Ryan. So I'm very excited to be attending Commercial Space Week again in 2026. I really enjoyed it last year. So I'm very curious. I know every year with these mega events, there are things that people need to look forward to that maybe they didn't see in the previous years or there's new stuff that you all have been working on. So I'm sure there's a lot of things like that you wanna tell me about. So why don't we get into it? - Yeah, I mean, so if you are a human, this has been a very interesting year. There's a lot of changes inside the government, inside the Defense Department, inside the civil space arena. So there is a lot to talk about, whether you are left of launch and working at a space port, whether you're in the defense community or in the civil space side or the commercial space side, there's been a lot that has happened in the last year. And I think the anticipation got it in 2026, it's gonna be just as interesting a year. So we're trying to reflect that as much as we can at commercial space week. That's one of the beauty of having all three events there focused on each individual sort of market sector there so that we can get involved and down the dirty in each category. So you're gonna see some different things that pretend, you see, I mean, just to go through, each one of the global space portal alliances have seen tremendous growth this year. There's lots of global interests, there's lots of investment in that side of the industry. And so I think there's gonna be a lot to talk about at the space port summit on the space mobility side or defense focused event. We've taken a different approach for our content this year. We're focused on a warfighter capability and how the acquirer and the industry help get the space force to being able to provide that capability, a little bit different approach. And it's brought in some different fighting forces on the military side and some new speakers on the commercial side. And then at Spacecom, we are, as NASA is too, we are leaning into the Artemis missions and getting humans back to the moon and ultimately to Mars and into deep space and all the technologies and services and things that are gonna have to be figured out and scaled to enable us to do that. So lots and lots of talk about a commercial space week this year. Wow, that's so exciting. And I'm thinking specifically for the timing with the Artemis mission also, it's gonna be a good time to be in the Orlando area. That's for sure. So for heaven for space nerds right now. So that's a good time. Are there any specific tracks or anticipated speakers that you really wanna make sure the people know about? Yeah, we've got some great, I think just because of the gravity of everything that's going on and the weight of everything, we've got some great keynote speakers this year. I know we've got politicians coming down to talk and being our stages share, which has been tough for us together just 'cause of the time of year that we're in. But we've got senators, we've got congressmen coming down to talk. We've got big time keynote speakers on the Space and Voted Conference. We've got General Whiting from US Spacecom coming to talk about what they need as a fighting force from the space community. On the Spacecom side, we've got Bill Nye coming to talk about how important the science community and science missions are ultimately to the commercial industry, not just to the science community, but how that science supports the growth and development of everything that we're working on and we're trying to grow here. We've got Christian Davenport, who's just got a book out this year. He's coming to talk about Elon and Jeff. And then we've got some economic experts from KPMG, Brian Miski coming to tell everybody what he thinks is gonna happen and how he sees non-space industry starting to connect to the space industry and what that's gonna mean for us and for them. So we're very excited to have those folks come down and we're adding more every day. We've got Key Nasa personnel coming down to talk. We've got US Space Force PEOs all over the stage as well. So it's really a can't miss event if you need to know what's going on in the space industry. I'm curious what your pro tips are for people who've attended in the past or maybe might be attending for the first time this year for them to get the most out of the entire event 'cause it is quite big. It was never big enough, right? It's been interesting. We have a lot of folks that comment on they like the size of it, but I think there's still so much more community that could come in and contribute and be a part of the event. So we do anticipate it being a bigger audience that we had last year. Our exhibit hall is gonna be the biggest it's ever been. So the event is growing, I think just 'cause people are interested in it. We have a lot of technology products that we offer as an event provider that enable an attendee to find their way around. There'll be a mobile app that attendees can start downloading to help them navigate their way through the program, set schedules for themselves, send meetings and connect with exhibitors and attendees that they might wanna meet with on site. So we'd encourage everybody to take advantage of that for new attendees and returning attendees. We've got a new feature we're very excited about this year. We try to, if you've ever sat through an hour long panel discussion, sometimes they're not always the most exciting thing or they're hard to engage with sometimes. So we're adding a software product this year where attendees can take notes on their mobile device as they're going through the presentations, but it actually is recording and then using the same AI software that will record like your video chats. And it'll send every attendee that was in that session an AI executive summary of what was said in that session and a full transcript. - Oh, that's handy. - And that'll be available after the event too. So if you can't remember exactly what would happen, you know, what was said or you're like, "I know there was somebody on that panel "that said something I can't remember if it was "or what they said, you'll be able to go back "and review that transcript and find that note "or find that quote or reach out to the speaker "that said that thing." So there's some things that we're trying to do. Like I said, it is getting bigger. So we're trying to make it easy and make it feel small still for people to get in there and use it. But, you know, having everything compact there at the convention center, the three different audiences there, it's really an opportunity like very few others. And we hope to see everybody there taking advantage. - Absolutely. And I wanted to also ask about the global perspective because it is a very international group of people that show up to this conference and the series of conferences. So I imagine we might be seeing more people than ever from overseas attending this year. - Yeah, and, you know, we've seen more interest. I think there's, you know, the global political landscape has been an interesting one to navigate this year. So we've seen a lot of international space agencies start to take a larger role in defining standards and moving forward in some certain technologies as opposed to looking to the United States to always lead the way. We obviously want to maintain that global leadership in the space industry. So we welcome those international communities to our event to have conversations with our domestic space community. And so, you know, we've got interest from multiple nations this year. The Italians as always, the Australians, the Japanese, the EU, the UK, like they'll be a large contingent of international groups. I know I'm forgetting to mention a bunch. South America is coming, especially since we're in Florida, which is, you know, kind of the gateway of the United States for South America. We're starting to see more and more folks attend from that part of the world too. There's African nations and attendance. We, you know, we really have most of the allied global community attending and taking part in discussions and learning how to be a part. 'Cause like I said earlier, like if this is really gonna scale and we want to get to the levels of, you know, economic levels that everybody's talking about, it is gonna take the global community to get there. Absolutely. Well, Ryan, I know we're coming up on time, so I wanna make sure that if there's anything else you wanted to mention to our audience, to entice them to register if they haven't already, I wanna give you that opportunity. Yeah, I would say, you know, my sales team would kill me, but, you know, we often send out promo codes. So if you haven't received one already, I'm sure one will be coming your way. So take a manage of those to get in to the event for the best value possible. We think that the all access pass is the way to go, 'cause it gives you access to all of these different communities and all of this different content. And it's so much of it crosses over and is relevant. So it's hard to just attend one event or the other. So we try to make it easy and simple and affordable for everybody to be there for the whole week. But, you know, again, having all three communities there between the ground industry, the left of launch industry, the spaceports, the defense community, and then the civil space and commercial group, it is an opportunity to start the year off, to see everybody heading into the year's slate of events. We sort of get things kicked off. There's a lot of announcements coming out this year. And we're forming new partnerships. We're growing our community. There are more and more people coming to be a part of our event and to experience what happens at Commercial Space Week. So, you know, don't wait to get your registration. The holidays are coming up quick and make sure you take care of it beforehand so you don't forget and then you're screened with the last seconds. So we appreciate everybody's support and, you know, helping us to grow this community and the industry overall. We'll be right back. Welcome back. The third ever interstellar object ever found in the history of astronomy, Comet 3i Atlas, has been making for a lot of interesting headlines this year. Now, it was discovered this past July and since then, what's the deal with this comet? How interstellar are we talking? Is it aliens? No, it's not aliens, despite how much some of you might be hoping. Yes, I see you. This interstellar object is many billions of years older than our solar system between eight and 14 billion years old, whereas our solar system is a mere 4.6 billion years old give or take. So we do have an ancient visitor in our midst right now and this visitor is making its closest path to Earth on the 19th of December, 2025. Yes, that is right. If you are listening to me the day after we publish this episode and I know that's when lots of you do, we have the stats. 3i Atlas is the closest to us that it will ever get right now. Yes, literally right now. In addition to being really stinking old, 3i Atlas is also quite chemically distinctive from comets that originate in our solar system. It's got a lot more nickel and iron to it, for example, and it has a high amount of diatomic carbon in its coma or the hazy halo around the comet, which helps give it its distinctive greenish hue as it has been heating up in its closer past to our local star. And when I say it's making its closer past, it is still twice the distance from us as we are to the sun. So yeah, it's still very far away. Now, 3i Atlas is actually visible to the backyard astronomers in the Northern Hemisphere right now, which is the first time us ordinary folks could actually see an interstellar object, kind of neat. And it will be in view through January, so don't fret if you didn't catch it just now. And with the Rubin Observatory having come online earlier this year, undoubtedly we will see many more interstellar objects being discovered in the coming years. And like 3i Atlas, they are gonna be full of interesting surprises and will also, to the disappointment of some and some of you no doubt, still not be aliens. (upbeat music) And that's T-minus brought to you by N2K Cyberfire. We'd love to know what you think of our 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 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. (upbeat music) - T-minus. (upbeat music) (fire crackling) [BLANK_AUDIO]
