[MUSIC PLAYING] Today is January 30th, 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] Five. Space object ZQ3RB, the second stage of a launch vehicle that could have a dummy payload attached, is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere today and has a strong possibility of crashing on land. [INAUDIBLE] L3Harris Technologies reported below Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter revenue, blaming the decline in part on prolonged US government shutdown delayed contract awards. [INAUDIBLE] SpaceX is reportedly considering a merger with Tesla and artificial intelligence company XAI. Two. Varta Space has successfully completed the reentry of its W5 capsule. One. The US Army is now accepting applications for a new enlisted career track focused entirely on space operations. [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC PLAYING] Later in today's program, our partners at NSF will be bringing us the latest space traffic report. Looking at the space launch news from the last seven days and taking a look at what's ahead this week. Could we be seeing a wet dress rehearsal in the cold spell that is heading to Florida? Well, join us later to find out more. [MUSIC PLAYING] Today, my friends, is the very last day of Space Com. And at the time of publishing, us at the team minus team will all be on our planes heading back to our respective corners of the United States. It has been an amazing week. And we've met some truly incredible guests. And most humbling was meeting you, our dear listeners. So thank you for coming by the booth and telling us your stories. I really mean it. Because it really means a lot to myself, to Alice, and to Liz. So thank you. And staying with you for our Intel briefing today. Uncle Sam says he needs you for space operations roles. Well, maybe not all of you, because some of us are a little over the age restrictions to say nothing of citizenship requirements. The US Army is now accepting applications for a new and listed career track that is focused entirely on space operations. And it formalizes a role that has until now relied on soldiers who are temporarily assigned from other branches. The new position aims to meet the rising threats in missile defense and the space domain. The new military occupational specialty, MOS-40D Tactical Space Operations Specialist, will be officially established October 1 and is open to soldiers in grades E4 through E9 across the active duty Army, National Guard, and Army Reserve. The Army is planning to open 1,000 slots for the new specialty, which is expected to swell to 1,500 by 2032. Lieutenant General Sean Aghaini, US Army Space and Missile Defense Command Commanding General, said the new MOS will allow the command to build and retain expertise among its space non-commissioned officer cohort through a stable career path. The 40D Command Ready Professionals will support the warfighter and ensure the success of joint and partner forces in multi-domain operations by denying, disrupting, and degrading adversary operations through the electromagnetic spectrum and countering space domain threats before and during competition, crisis, and conflict. If you're interested, more details can be found by following the link in our show notes. VARTA Space has successfully completed the re-entry of its W-5 capsule. It is the first time that VARTA has used its own vertically integrated satellite bus to support the full mission lifecycle, from orbital operations to atmospheric re-entry. The W-5 mission carried a payload for the US Navy and landed safely within the designated recovery zone at Kuniba Test Range in South Australia, operated by Southern Launch. This is the company's first re-entry of this year. And now we're still only in the first month of 2026, technically. And it underscores VARTA's transition towards full-stack autonomy and its growing role as a critical partner for national security and defense applications. Congratulations to the team. You know, it's been rumored for months, if not years, that SpaceX is going to go public. And now those rumors are extending to a blockbuster deal. Bloomberg is reporting that SpaceX is considering a merger with Tesla and possibly with artificial intelligence company XAI as well. Raiders reports that Elon Musk wants to bring his rockets, Starlink satellites, the ex-social media platform, and GROC AI chatbot under one roof. An ideal could attract sizable interest from infrastructure funds and Middle Eastern sovereign investors, some of the people close to the negotiations told Bloomberg. Tesla said earlier this week that it will invest $2 billion in Musk's artificial intelligence company, XAI, and production plans for its cyber cab RoboTaxi were on track for this year. L3Harris Technologies reported below estimates for fourth quarter revenue, blaming the decline, in part, on prolonged US government shutdown delayed contract awards. Thank goodness it looks like we have avoided the same fate again so soon. The shutdown, which started in late September of last year, was the longest in the country's history. And it lasted 43 days, ending in November. It disrupted procurement activity for the military and hurt defense suppliers like L3Harris. The company took a hit in its space systems business, which was also bogged down by lower volumes in its classified Intel and cyber program. And this guy is falling. I always wanted to get to say that, but I'm not imitating chicken little. The EU space surveillance and tracking operation centers have been monitoring the reentry into Earth's atmosphere of the space object, ZQ3RB. Don't worry, you don't need to remember that. It's the second stage of a launch vehicle that could have a dummy payload attached. The EU SST network of contributing sensors is closely following the object to refine the reentry window, which was estimated to be today at 1120 UTC, with an uncertainty of less than an hour. We recorded early today due to our travel plans to get home. So hopefully it's landed without issue, but you never know. Due to its inclination of approximately 56.94 degrees, the object could have re-entered within a latitude band of plus or minus 57 degrees, which covers a vast area of Earth's surface. So stay vigilant, folks, and here's hoping nobody was harmed. Really, you never know when a piece of space debris could fall out of the sky. And that wraps up today's top five stories, but please stay with us, as there is still more news to come from our colleagues at NASA Space Flight. You can also dig a little deeper into any of the stories that we've mentioned throughout today's episode by following the links included in our show notes. Tomorrow, please be sure to check your podcast feed for T-Minus 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-Minus Deep Space tomorrow, we have Eric Anderson, who is the CEO of CINMAX, talking to me about turning space data into intelligence with AI. And that is on T-Minus Deep Space tomorrow. Don't miss it. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let me hand you over now to our friends and colleagues at NSF. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF, and this is your weekly space traffic report for T-Minus Space. This week was dominated by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket with some Starlink missions and also the launch of a GPS satellite. The first of the Starlink missions occurred on January 25 at 1730 UTC from Vandenberg. This launch was carrying a batch of 25 Starlink V2 mini satellites into sun synchronous orbit. Also on this flight were what appeared to be a patch of heat shield tiles from Starship on the active fairing half. This fairing half is the one facing away from the strong back when the rocket's vertical on the pad. Additionally, the rocket did not perform its traditional post-lift-off roll, which meant that the patch of tiles were flying uphill facing the wind. This may have been a test to gather data on the ability of these tiles to stay attached to Starship while on its way up, as it's been seen in the past that this hasn't been an easy task. At SpaceX's McGregor facility, we at NSF also found a test area that appears to do similar testing of this, but on the ground. So it really does look like they're trying to solve this problem in whatever way possible. For this mission, SpaceX flew one of the more rookie boosters on the West Coast with B1097 completing its sixth launch and landing successfully. Another Falcon 9 launch took place a few days after on January 28th at 453 UTC, but this time from the Florida Space Coast. The mission was carrying the GPS-3 Space Vehicle 9 satellite into a medium-Earth orbit for the US Space Force. The satellite is the ninth of the GPS third-generation satellite constellation and it's named after Ellison Onizuka, a NASA astronaut and one of the crew members who lost their lives onboard Challenger during the STS-51L mission just 40 years before this launch took place. This mission marks the third time that the US Space Force switched rides for a GPS satellite from Vulcan to Falcon 9 due to Vulcan's initial development delays and later because of the SRB nozzle issue during its second flight. On each occasion, the Space Force is compensated for this by moving around future GPS missions between a SpaceX rocket and a ULA rocket to the point that, to be honest, it's actually becoming a bit complicated to keep track of now. SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 from Vandenberg the next day on January 29th at 1753 UTC, carrying another batch of Starlink V2 mini-satellites into orbit. This mission once again carried a patch of Starship heat shield tiles on the active fairing half and also lacked the traditional post-lift-off role that we've seen in previous missions. The booster for this launch, B-1082, was flying for a 19th time and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, of course, I still love you. To wrap up the week, we had the launch of an electron from New Zealand on the Bridging the Swarm mission. The rocket was carrying the NeonSat 1A satellite for KIST into sun synchronous orbit. KIST stands for Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and is the entity that conceived of the mission and ordered the launch from Rocket Lab. NeonSat 1A is just the second of a multi-satellite Earth observation satellite constellation in low Earth orbit. The first satellite, which also launched on a previous electron mission, was used as a prototype for this satellite constellation. Following that mission, KIST decided to launch a second prototype on this mission in order to verify and validate what was found the first time. And right after electron, we also had another Starlink launch by SpaceX, this time from Florida. The first stage for this mission, B-1095, was flying for a fifth time and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, just read the instructions. Next week, we'll have up to three more Starlinks in the schedule, two from Vandenberg and one from Florida. We may also have a Soyuz launch with a classified satellite from Plesetsk. Notices have also started to appear for the de-orbit and re-entry of Vasshaven demo spacecraft, which is nearing the end of its mission. And in the really lucky event that the Artemis II wet Dress rehearsal goes well in the next few days, the earliest launch opportunity for that mission could be right after next week's episode. That's just another reason to always check NexSpaceflight.com or download the NexSpaceflight app on your phone to keep track of when launches might happen or to see if they end up delaying. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF and that's your weekly space traffic report. Now back to T-Minus Space. We'll be right back. (air whooshes) Welcome back. In ground processing environments, those ubiquitous remove before flight tags, they are ubiquitous, they're really everywhere. They're attached to plugs, covers, pins, anything that should not be on board when a vehicle takes off. They are bright red and truly impossible to miss and they're part of a last minute checklist that saves lives and hardware. And also, I'm sure many of you like us have them as key chains, they're a very beloved aerospace swag. And that is exactly what one buyer thought when he decided to buy some in 2010 off of eBay. They were 18 tags sold as generic shuttle memorabilia. And enthusiasts bought them cheaply thinking they'd be great giveaways at talks and space events. Only later did he actually notice the small stamped codes and then begin to piece together what they were. And it actually turns out that the space collector had bought tags from the ill-fated Challenger mission. And this week marked 40 years since that Challenger disaster. And there is something meaningful in these tags, not because they caused or predicted any tragedy, but they were there during that mission. And they do represent the mundane repetitive acts of careful preparation that always happened before every flight. And then when something does go wrong, it's those routines that we do revisit, remember, and preserve. So the hope now is to place these tags in museums and archives. And of course, it's not to glorify the loss, but to anchor the stories of exploration, diligence, and memory in the objects that once lived at the margins of space flight. And that's T-minus, brought to you all this week by N2K Cyberwire at Commercial Space Week in Orlando, Florida. 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 the 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 next is 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. BeerKilpe is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful weekend. T minus. T minus. T minus. T minus. T minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]
