[MUSIC PLAYING] Today is January 23, 2026. 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] Bye. China's uncrewed Shenzhou 20 capsule returned to Earth from the Tiangong Space Station. Four. Tomorrow.io has announced a new AI native space-based atmospheric and oceanic sensing network. Three. Illyria has been selected by AFRL's Rapid Program to advance software solutions for managing complex military space communications networks. Two. Loft Orbital was selected as the prime contractor for France's Dizier program. One. DeOrbit has raised $53 million in a Series D funding round. [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] Lift off. [MUSIC PLAYING] And of course, it is Friday, which can only mean one thing for our regular listeners. The NASA spaceflight team will be joining us later in the show for the latest space traffic report. Elysia Siegel will be wrapping up the launch news from the last seven days, and will be giving us a sneak preview at what's on the schedule for the coming week. More on that after today's intelligence briefing. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let's dive into today's headlines, shall we? And we are starting off in Europe first. Italian space company DeOrbit has secured $53 million in its Series D funding round. The new raise is expected to be used for DeOrbit's space to space infrastructure and its proficiency in in-space computing. DeOrbit, best known for its transportation and satellite deployment, is looking to expand into in-space servicing assembly and manufacturing, or ISAM, and dual-use space applications that serve both civil and national security interests. The new funding was led by the Azamet Group, which is not expected to fully close until June. In addition, Azamet is expected to purchase $75 million in shares from an existing DeOrbit investor. It's an interesting expansion for the company, and we're sure that things will move quickly for them with this new injection of capital. Yesterday, we were talking about TELUS Alenia space being selected for France's first space-based radar imaging program. And what we failed to mention was that Loft Orbital was selected as the prime contractor for the Dizier program. I think my producer just wanted to hear my French pronunciation again. You got it, Alice. Dizier, as a reminder, stands for-- oh, God, you're making me do this again? Demonstrateur des aliments souverains d'imagerie radar. There you go. I did it again. Pierre Damien Vaudjour, who is Loft CEO and co-founder, said in the press release that we are very pleased to lead this program alongside TELUS Alenia space and TEC Hevers France. With Dizier, Loft Orbital proves that its standardized infrastructure model offers an immediate response to the most critical sovereign needs. By leading this consortium, we demonstrate the maturity of new space companies' ability to assume the responsibilities of prime contractor for complex government projects and the ability to have technology startups and large defense contractors working hand-in-hand on hardware development and satellite operations for sovereign systems. Moving on now, and Alenia has been selected by the US Air Force Research Laboratory's Rapid Architecture Prototyping and Integration Development, or RAPID, program to advance software solutions for managing complex military space communications networks. The contract falls under the Space Data Network Experimentation Program, which is awarded through AFRL's Space Technology Advanced Research Fast Tracking Innovative Software and Hardware, or Starfish Initiative. That is a heck of an acronym, guys. Alenia plans to evaluate how its space-time AI-enabled orchestration software can integrate diverse satellite systems, ground infrastructure and communications links into a seamless, resilient network for defense operations. The goal is to advance space-time as a candidate for a future Space Data Network, a hybrid network of networks that integrates multi-orbit, multi-domain, government, allied, and commercial communication systems. Tomorrow.io has announced a new AI-native, space-based atmospheric and oceanic sensing network, a network called DeepSky is developed and designed to make Earth's atmosphere and oceans continuously observable in real-time, powering faster, smarter, global decision-making, and response. This will be Tomorrow.io's second constellation, announced just a week after completing the full deployment of its first constellation, which was equipped with KA-band radar and microwave sounders. Tomorrow.io says DeepSky will be introduced in phases with additional details shared as the program progresses. And earlier this week, China's uncrewed Shenzhou-20 capsule returned to Earth from the Tiangong Space Station. The spacecraft parachuted into the Dongfeng landing site in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. This is the capsule that was damaged, by the way, by space debris, causing China to scramble to send another vehicle to the crew in orbit. The China National Space Administration said on-site inspection of the returned capsule found that its exterior was generally normal and the items secured inside the vehicle were in good condition. According to a report by the state-run Xinhua News Agency, the recovery crew observed that the capsule's porthole had an unexpected mark on the edge of the outermost glass, a triangular shape about two centimeters long. A report conducted at the time that the mark was discovered concluded that indeed the capsule was not safe to use by humans. We are sure further investigations are inspected and Bravo to China for taking the safety of their crew seriously. And that wraps up today's Top 5 Stories in the Space Industry. We have more on the latest launch news from NSF coming up, but before that, N2K Senior Producer Alice Garouf, who just loves my French pronunciation, clearly joins me now with a look at the other stories that are making today's headlines. Alice, what do you have for us on this lovely Friday? Happy Friday, Maria. We've included two extra stories today in the selected reading section of our show notes. SPI Global has been selected by AI-DASH to provide advanced weather intelligence and data. The data will be used to enhance AI-DASH's integrated solution for securing the modern electric grid from vegetation and weather-driven risk. And we have an update on Blue Origin's New Shepherd space tourism flight, which lifted off yesterday from down the road to me in Van Horn, Texas. And how about you introduce Tomorrow's Deep Space for us, because it's you and your guest. Absolutely yes! Tomorrow be sure to check out your podcast feed for T-Minor's Deep Space. It's our special edition Saturday show where we share an in-depth interview and dive a bit deeper into fascinating topics with brilliant guests. And on T-Minor's Deep Space Tomorrow, I'll be talking to retired NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenberger about the Challenger Learning Centers. It's been 40 years since the tragic Challenger disaster but the crew's legacy lives on in the Challenger Learning Centers and Dottie, who is the incoming chair of the Challenger Board, shares what the education organization is doing to mark the anniversary. That's on T-Minor's Deep Space Tomorrow. Don't miss it! Let me hand you over now to our partners at nasaspaceflight.com. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF, and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for T-Minus Space. This week started with two back-to-back launch failures from China, the first one occurring with the Changjiang 3B-E rocket that launched on January 16th at 1655 UTC from Shichang. The rocket was carrying one of China's secretive Xi Jian line of experimental satellites. Based on the prelaunch notices, the satellite was intended to be placed into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. However, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the rocket's manufacturer, an anomaly occurred during the third stage phase of flight, which resulted in a launch failure. This failure was a rare one, as the Changjiang 3B is an old rocket with a relatively good track record. The third stage of the Changjiang 3B-E is a relatively small hydrogen-fueled upper stage that shares commonalities with the hydrolox upper stages of other similarly-sized rockets in China. So as a result of this failure, some other launches have also been paused for the moment. This failure also coincided with the start of a roughly one-month-long series of celebrations ahead of the Chinese New Year, a period that also sees a reduction in launch activity from China. So, with all that said, don't be surprised if we don't see a lot of launches from them in the next month or so. The second launch failure from China this week occurred during the debut flight of Galactic Energy's Series II rocket. The vehicle lifted off on January 17th at 408 UTC from the Jotuan Satellite Launch Center to test out all of the new systems of this rocket. Series II draws upon the experience that the company had gained with its smaller Series I rocket, which has launched 23 times so far. But this experience can't really translate one-to-one for this new rocket as it's over twice the diameter of the other. Like its smaller sibling, Series II also has four stages, with the first three fueled by solid propellant, while the fourth is made of a liquid-fueled stage with hypergolic propellants. According to the reports from local spectators, the rocket started having problems shortly after liftoff, then crashed to the ground. No details have been published of the accident, and little to no pictures or video exist of the rocket or of its failure. Despite those two failed launches from China, the rest of the launches this week were successful. Just a few minutes after the debut launch of Series II, a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg in the United States at 439 UTC. The mission carried another batch of Star Shield satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office as part of the agency's proliferated space architecture. The first stage for this mission, B-1100, was flying for a second time, and it successfully landed back at landing zone 4 just a few hundred meters away from its launch pad. After that, we had another Falcon 9 launch, this time from Florida, lifting off on January 18th at 2331 UTC with another batch of Starlink V2 mini-satellites. The first stage for this mission, B-1080, was flying for a 24th time, and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship a shortfall of Gravitas. Meanwhile, in orbit, there was a return from space of a crew spacecraft, but with no one on board. I'm of course talking about the return of the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, which was previously docked to the Tiangong Space Station. Shenzhou-20 had launched with three crew members back in April of last year, but in early November, just hours before it was scheduled to return with a monboard, the departure was called off. This cancellation came after the astronauts discovered a crack in one window of the descent module of the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft. The China manned space agency, also known as CMSA, decided not to take any risks and send the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft to the station without a crew. It would then serve as a lifeboat and return spacecraft for the crew of Shenzhou-21, which had arrived at the end of October to relieve the crew of Shenzhou-20. As for the crew of Shenzhou-20, well, in a game of orbital musical chairs, the three crew members successfully returned to Earth on the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft since there was now a safe way for everyone on the station to return to Earth. While the crew's change locations, Shenzhou-20 had remained undocked from the station since it only had two active docking ports for crewed spacecraft. It returned to the station once Shenzhou-21 departed and was later inspected from the outside on the spacewalk in December. With all possible data taken, the CMSA decided to end the spacecraft's mission in orbit and return it back to Earth. Undocking took place on January 18 at 1623 UTC after nine months in space. The spacecraft then executed its deorbit and reentry sequences and touched down in the deserts of Inner Mongolia on January 19th at 134 UTC. While it didn't carry anyone on board, it did carry some cargo back to Earth, and the damaged window was quickly covered up after landing. The reason for this was supposedly to preserve the state of the window for later analysis. It's not clear whether we'll ever get any information as to what happened to it, as well as what happened to the capsule during descent because of it. But here's hoping that we do. Back on Earth, we had more launches, with at least one successful mission out of China. A Changjiang-12 rocket lifted off on January 19th at 748 from the commercial Wenchang Space Launch Site in China. The rocket was carrying the 19th batch of operational Guangdong satellites into low Earth orbit. Back in the United States, there was another Starlink launch, this one from Vandenberg on January 22 at 547 UTC. The first stage for this launch, B-1093, was flying for a tenth time, and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, of course I still love you. And just a few hours later, at 1052 UTC, we had the launch of an electron rocket from New Zealand. The mission, called "The Cosmos We'll See You Now," was carrying the first two satellites of Open Cosmos' broadband constellation. This marked Electron's first launch of the year, and also its 80th launch overall. That was it for the orbital launches this week, but right at the end, we had a suborbital launch of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, with six passengers on board. The mission lifted off on January 22 at 1625 UTC from Blue Zone spaceport in West Texas. On board were Timothy Drexler, Linda Edwards, Alan Fernandez, Alberto Gutierrez, Jim Hendrin, and Laura Stiles. The last passenger on that list, Laura Stiles, is actually Blue Origin's director of New Shepard launch operations. She stepped in as one of the passengers when Andrew Yaffe, who was part of the original ensemble, fell ill and had to wave off his opportunity to fly on this mission. Though, Blue says he'll still fly on a future mission. Thanks to this change, Laura got to experience firsthand the rocket and capsule that she'd been working on for 13 years since she joined the company in 2013. Going into next week, we'll have up to four Falcon 9 launches, three of them carrying batches of Starlink satellites, and the fourth launching the ninth GPS-3 satellite for the US Space Force. Rocket Lab is also looking at launching another electron from New Zealand with the Bridging the Swarm mission. And we may also potentially have one launch from China out of Wenchang. Up in orbit, we've also got the unburthing and release of the HTV-X1 spacecraft, which will depart the ISS after three months. After separation, it'll remain in orbit for a few more months to carry out further missions while in free flight and demonstrate longer on-orbit durations. As always, we recommend that you visit neckspaceflight.com or download the app on your phone so you can be up to date with these events whenever and wherever you are. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF, and that's your weekly Space Traffic Report. Now back to T-Minus Space. [Music] We'll be right back. Welcome back. As more space debris comes screaming back to Earth or re-entering the atmosphere, as is often put in the Spacey parlance, researchers are discovering that the best way to track the debris may already be buried underground. That's because a new study that was published in the journal Science shows that earthquake sensors can actually pick up the sonic booms from re-entering spacecraft. This seismic technique actually helped scientists to reconstruct the breakup of a discarded Chinese crew module over California in 2024, where researchers were able to place its path actually further off than orbital models had predicted. And the team who have figured out this technique have also used it to track a number of debris events, including the three Starship Test failures last year that ended in explosions over the Caribbean. Right now, this technique allows researchers to trace debris paths after radar coverage fails. And while this technique takes a bit of time now, the goal is to get it refined so that we will get that information in minutes, if not in seconds. We're not there yet, but hopefully one day soon. Understandably, space debris falling through our atmosphere at increasing amounts is a dangerous problem to have such a gap in our understanding of where the debris is actually going as it starts breaking up in our atmosphere. Especially, I don't know, for planes as they are in transit. Really need I say more on the risk there? If you would like to dig in more to this research, there is a link to the study in Science in our show notes for you. Definitely go check it out. [Music] And that is 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 the 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 next is for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, the technology, and 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 Kilpie is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful weekend. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
