[MUSIC PLAYING] Today is February 18, 2026. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-minus. [MUSIC PLAYING] Five. Loft Orbital and SmartSat CRC are partnering to demonstrate wildfire detection from LORTH orbit using AI. Four. Kepler Communications has chosen NanoAvionics as its preferred European partner for optically connected missions. Three. Voyager Technologies is working with Atmos Space Cargo to expand in-space logistics and re-entry capabilities. Two. China's Space Epoch has secured new funding and is targeting a 2026 launch and sea recovery attempt. One. China's Icebase has raised $730 million to advance its reusable rocket ambitions. [MUSIC PLAYING] Lift off. [MUSIC PLAYING] Today's guest is Michelle Lucas, CEO and founder of Higher Orbits. The STEM nonprofit is celebrating 10 years of their programs this summer and has a lot of big plans for 2026. Find out more after today's headlines. [MUSIC PLAYING] Today we're tracking capital flows, reusable rockets, optical links, and AI at the edge. There is a clear theme running through these stories. That would be access, control, and smarter space infrastructure. So let us dive in. First up, China's commercial launch sector just got a serious boost. China's Icebase, which is not to be confused with Japan's company of the same name, has raised $730 million to advance its reusable rocket ambitions. It's positioning itself as a domestic alternative to SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket. It's not a small raise, in fact. It's a new record for the biggest investment in a private company building rockets in China. And it's not just Icebase that is making headlines in China. Space Epoch has also secured new funding and is targeting a 2026 launch and sea recovery attempt. The company closed a Series B financing round of an undisclosed amount last week. Their maritime landings expand flexibility and open up more responsive mission profiles. The company says that the funding means that Space Epoch has entered a stage of large scale development. Voyager Technologies is working with Atmos Space Cargo to expand in space logistics and reentry capabilities. The companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding and Voyager Europe will serve as Atmos' integration and implementation partner, while Atmos will provide free-flying orbital vehicles with controlled and precise return capability, enabling end-to-end microgravity missions from launch through on-orbit operations and return to Earth. Both companies will mutually refer customers and mission opportunities across their network. And staying with the Transatlantic Partnerships theme, Canada's Kepler Communications has chosen NanoAvionics as its preferred European partner for optically connected missions. Kongsberg NanoAvionics will be Kepler's preferred European satellite bus provider for its hosted payload initiatives aboard spacecraft up to 500 kilos in mass. The non-exclusive preferential partnership is for missions that require seamless access across the Kepler network. It's also aimed at satellite operators that are seeking to function to faster and more secure optical communications that are built on the U.S. Space Development Agency's standards. Through this agreement, NanoAvionics will start offering its own customers access to Kepler's optical data relay network and on-orbit compute services as an optional feature within its portfolio of inter-satellite link solutions. And for our last story today, we are heading to Australia. Loft Orbital and SmartSat CRC are partnering to demonstrate wildfire detection from low-earth orbit using AI. The demo will see the companies approaching wildfire detection a little differently because instead of sending raw data back to Earth for processing, the satellite will do the thinking in orbit. Loft will deploy SmartSat CRC's wildfire detection application to its on-orbit satellites and the project will serve as a high-tech demo of near-real-time software-based wildfire detection from low-earth orbit. [music] And that, my friends, wraps up today's Intel Briefing. You can learn more about all of the stories mentioned throughout this episode by following the links in our show notes. And hey, T-minus crew, we've only got two more daily programs coming your way, and we want to thank you very much for sticking with us these last three years. We are working right now behind the scenes to update the T-minus format, and we would love to hear your input. Your feedback after all does help us shape the kind of content that you want to hear, so if you have ideas or suggestions, come on and send them our way. You can email us at space@ntuk.com, and that is the word space at the letter N, the number two, and the letter K.com and 2K. And thanks. [music] I recently caught up with Michelle Lucas, CEO and founder of Higher Orbits during Commercial Space Week in Florida. We hear the latest news with the STEM Outreach Organization. [music] We celebrated 10 years of existence in August, and what I mean by existence is, so we filed all the paperwork to become a 501C3, but I wouldn't do anything until we got that paperwork from the IRS that says, "Yay, Verily," and so on August 10th, 2015, we got that piece of paper, and that was when we started planning for, you know, running actual events, and that is the big 10-year anniversary that we're about to celebrate, is we will have our 10th anniversary of the Go For Launch program this June. Oh. And so that's really, I mean, don't get me wrong, we're excited about the 10 years of existence, but the 10 years of running Go For Launch, that's 10 years of active student engagement, and our plan is to run our 100th Go For Launch on the 10th anniversary of the first Go For Launch. At the same location, which is Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois, in northern suburb of Chicago, with the same astronaut, Dottie Matt Kaplan-Inberger. Oh, it's awful circle. It's awful circle. It's totally full circle, I love that. And it was, Dottie and I were talking the other day, and she's like, "Has it really been 10 years?" Yeah. I know, like, where did the time go? Okay, so when you reflect back on 10 years, and all of the students that you've met, and all of the science that they've been doing, and all the mentoring that's been going on, I mean, my brain just kind of stops them, just like, that is a lot of lives that you have changed. Well, I feel fortunate to get to be a little part of so many students' journeys, and maybe a slightly bigger than little part of some more, right? Yeah. We've reached thousands of students over these 10 years, and some of them, you know, we only see them for two or three days, and then we don't necessarily see them. Sometimes they come back five years later and are like, "Hey, by the way, I just graduated with my degree in Astrophysics, and I was inspired by the Go for Launch that I went to." And I'm like, "Whoa, where have you been the last six years? I'm so excited. This is amazing." And then we have some who continue to engage with us, and we've created opportunities for them to come to conferences, to have more mentorship. And so I feel fortunate every day that I get to be part of the journey for these students, whether they end up in this industry or elsewhere. Yeah. And I imagine when you started this 10 years ago, there was sort of a vision that you had that I'm sure has evolved from this point. Like, this is what's going to happen, but then this is what has actually happened. I'm sure surpassed your expectations, but can you tell me about any evolution in thought in that time? Yeah. And I laughed because it's one of those things that vision, I probably didn't have as big of a vision as I could have, and I definitely didn't have a business plan, which is also funny for people like, "What's your business plan?" I'm like, "My plan was to try and do something and it not totally fall apart." That sounds like a plan to me. Cool. Great plan. Right? Don't have my NBA, but it seems to be working okay. So I started this as a little pet project on the side. I wanted students, kids to have access to space-inspired STEM in their "backyards," as I like to say. And the idea was I was going to run this once in a while, trying to inspire students, help our workforce. What I definitely didn't envision was how all-consuming my passion for this would become, and it went from being this side pet project to my 70-80 hour a week passion. And if I could have more hours in the day, I would spend more hours in the day, because it's not work to me. I love it. And being able to interact with these students, show them what our community is in the space world, give them tools to excel here or wherever they want. I've been fortunate to do some cool things in my life. I don't think there's anything cooler than what I get to do with higher orbits. I was going to say you worked at NASA before. That was pretty cool. And for all my astronauts that are listening, I love y'all, but the kids, they're kind of where it's at. I love that. I actually had a couple of astronauts at IAC in Milan go. So what's more difficult? Training us or training students. I'm like, "Yeah, I don't know that y'all want me to answer that question." Okay. So what is the answer to that question? The answer is 100% edited. Okay. Fair, fair, fair. Yeah, I was going to say that the passion that you must encounter from these kids and imagination and just seeing all that potential there, that's got to be just... Whenever I get a little sliver of that in my own little world, it's always, I feel so energized. Yeah. It's got to be like that on steroids for you. I just got to imagine. This is why I tell people who are like, "You need more work-life balance." You work too many hours. I'm like, "I get energy from these students and their passion and their creativity." And the reality is, is about half of them who come to us are excited about STEM already and we can help them elevate. Yep. The other half, I'm not going to lie, Maria. They come in and they're like, "Yeah. I'm here because my mom made me come." Yes, of course. My teacher told me I had to go to this. Or, I don't know, I guess I'll hang out with an astronaut for a couple of days. And I heard she feeds us pizza and donuts. True, I do. Like, I'm not above bribery. Food matters. Look, in the immortal words of astronaut Marsha Ivins, "If you feed us, we will work." That works for astronauts. It works for students. But what I love is that both of those sets of students can come together. They form friendships. This is the other part of it, right? It's a byproduct, but it's also a passion of mine, helping students find their tribe. Other students will like them. And some of those students who weren't so excited about STEM, when we show them what the actual possibilities are versus what they think the possibilities are, suddenly it's a whole new world for them. I love that. And that all brings me joy. It brings me energy. And people have asked me, "Well, how long do you intend to do this?" Well, for as long as it's fun. And you know what? It's pretty darn fun. And I don't see this ending anytime soon. That's amazing. I love that you said about helping the kids find their tribe. Because I know when we have these macro conversations about workforce development and working with kids like educational development and all those kinds of things. I feel like sometimes, and this is not specific to you, I just feel like in the conversation it can be, "Well, the kids who are interested in STEM, they find their way to us." But there are so many kids who don't know that they're interested. And to me, it's like reaching those kids where they've never had the opportunity. Or they've never just had somebody to say, "These are the possibilities." Or just never had the time. There's so many small barriers that can just go away with just being able to show up to a thing. Absolutely. I kind of want to ask what your favorite stories are like that. And I'm sure you have a million. Can you pick any? It is hard, but I have a couple. And one of them is there's this kiddo. And she's one of the OG space kids. And I say that because I have had the privilege of taking the only U.S. students to the International Science School in Australia since 2019. And so she was part of that cohort. Wow. And every night they would come say, "Good night to me" in the dorms. And on like, maybe night two, they're like, "Good night, Space Mom!" And from there, it became that I became Space Mom. I refer to them as my space kiddos. Oh my God. And when people are like, "You can't call them kids." I'm like, "Well, they're my space kids." So I 100% can call them kids. But Abby came to us in 2017 in Gilbert, Arizona. And she walked in and she's like, "Oh, I don't know." You know, I kind of like to lay on the ground and look at the stars, but like, there's nothing in STEM for me. That's not my world. That's, I couldn't do that. Yeah. And as I was talking with her, I said, "Well, what is it you're interested in? What does it even think you might want to do?" I try hard to not ask it. What does it you want to do? What does it you want to say? That's a lot of pressure, right? Yeah, I didn't even know how to answer that question ever. And the other part of it is the jobs that will exist for six, eight years from now might not exist now. That's very true. And so it's, you know, anyways, she's like, "Well, I don't know. I guess maybe I'd like to be a professional lacrosse player." And I remember thinking, "I didn't know that was a thing for guys, never less girls, but cool kid. Like, you know, knock yourself out." Well, Abby was like, I get emotional because Abby, she soaked in every bit of the day. And realized afterwards, maybe there is a place in this for me. Her team one ended up having their experiment flown to space. Amazing. Abby, who hated speaking in public, suddenly was on the NASA What's On Board press conference with me, out at Wallops Island. Yeah. Abby just graduated from CU Boulder with an aerospace engineering degree last May. Oh my God. And she's working as a manufacturing engineer in Colorado. Oh my God. And this is from a student who was like, "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe professional lacrosse. I kind of like looking at the stars. That's fun." And it's part of why I'm also so passionate about this attitude. You said, people were like, "Oh, the kids in STEM will find us." Okay, but what about the kids who don't know that STEM is for them? That's exactly it. Yes. And the thing is, is they think, most students think STEM is this very narrow pipeline. And the reality is it's huge, including what you all do. This is STEM. This is talking about STEM topics, what's happening in industry. Yeah. I have another student who in Tallahassee was like, "Yeah. I like to crochet and paint." I was like, "What kind of paint?" She was like, "You know, kind of like a little old lady, like Bob Ross paintings?" Sounds awesome. And I was like, "You know what? I love that for you. That's fantastic." That's science right there. Absolutely. And she was part of the winning team and is looking at this industry or STEM in general, totally differently, of like, "Oh wait, you need people to tell that story. You need people to do those graphics." That's right. Correct. Because the average engineer is not amazing at telling the story. I mean, that is one of my goals is to make all of our students better communicators as well. Oh, there you go. But we need people to be able to tell the story in different ways. And I can really tell a great story, but you don't want me to draw anything. Trust me, it ain't pretty. Well, we do need all sorts of skill sets for sure. And it's very heartening to see and hear, you know, communications getting its love. And I strongly agree. That's, I think, it's extremely crucial. And, you know, I think even for those of us who have a more traditional STEM background, knowing what the possibilities are at a younger age, it does expand horizons. And also, I think back on myself when I was in high school and I just didn't know what possibilities were out there for me. And I was just like, "I like space. I like science. But I don't know what kind of world I would want to enter. And how much it would have helped me." Just, again, this is very personal. How much it would have helped me to have encountered something like what you do. Just open my mind to the possibilities. Because I remember being in college going, "I'm trying to figure this out now. It felt a little late." But if I had known earlier how much of a difference that would have made for me. So I can only begin to imagine the kids that you have impacted. Like, incredible. Well, I am super excited that with our 10-year anniversary, so for years as I brought students to conferences and we just had six students at AIAW SciTAC. We'll have four students at the Space Traffic Management Conference in Austin next month. Panels at both of them with our students. When I bring them together and to the point of finding their tribe, most of these students haven't met each other before, right? And so they get together and they're like, "Space mom, space mom. We love meeting other space kids. Can we have like a meetup?" And for years, I'm like, "Oh, that's adorable. You think I have time for that win in the money tree in the backyard? Like, it still hasn't sprouted. But like, I'll work on that. Like, I love y'all. I wish I could make this happen." Yeah. Well, for our 10th anniversary, we are. So we're doing the first ever Higher Orbitz Alumni Rendezvous. Oh! It's going to be in Chicago. Nice. And so we're going to be able to bring students back from across the country to meet each other, to share their stories, and also to bring an industry to talk with them, because this is our future work for. That's right. And no matter what's happening in industry in today's day and time, we still need to be looking forward to two, four, six, eight, ten years. And these students are part of that pipeline. And so I'm really excited for them to get to hang out together. I'm also excited because they're going to get to go to the places that were meaningful to me as a child. So I grew up in Chicago. Yep. And the Museum of Science and Industry was the place that, like, I loved. Yeah. And it's not as robust as Kennedy Space Center, obviously, but it was the first time that I got to see these things. Yes. And so the students were going to have an event at the museum, and one of the other full circle moments is the capsule that is on display there now, the Dragon capsule. It happens to be the capsule that carried our first ever Go For Launch student experiment to space. Oh, my God. And so when I saw the new unveiling of everything, like, I was just tears because it is this full circle moment for higher orbits, but also for me personally as a little kid who was in love with space in Chicago. And so I get to share this with our students. I'm so excited about that. And they get to share with each other and become the network. Like, we all are here, right? Yes. It's part of why I bring them to the conferences to meet people, but I also love for them to be able to see my interactions with my colleagues like you and Alice and our friends at BRPH and Metro Nome, understanding that we are a space family. Yeah, it's true. And so they get to have their own little subset of the space family of being the higher orbits family, and then they get to go out into the world and be part of the bigger family, but always know they can come back to each other. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Do you remember what you were doing on July 30th, 2020? Well, unless you were a medical professional or supporting one, probably not a whole lot. Well, you'd be forgiven for not remembering any current events on that day. So I will just jog your memory for you. It is the day that the Mars Perseverance Rover was launched. And Perseverance, or Perse as we all really tend to call her, made her incredible landing on Mars some months later on. Yeah, you guessed it. That would be today, February 18th, but back in 2021. So yes, Perseverance has now officially been a Martian resident for five years. And Perse was not alone. She had a friend come along with her on her trip, and that was Ingenuity or Ginny, the Marscopter. And the very first aircraft to achieve flight on another planet. And thanks to the proven success of Ingenuity, we are now seeing many more missions to other worlds, planned with copter-style exploration. But yes, it has been five years since Perseverance started her mission to look for potential signs of life on the red planet. And what a packed five years it has been. After all, in July 2024, Perseverance roved up to Shiava Falls. And after a year-long examination of the data she collected last year, we had one of the biggest scientific stories you could possibly imagine that maybe, maybe, maybe what we were looking at were actual biosignatures. We've never had a maybe, maybe, maybe situation like this before. So going from, hey, that's definitely never had life to, hey, potentially it could have. That actually is monumental. That is incredible. That is history changing. And that was all thanks to the Perseverance rover, who is still going strong on Mars. So do you remember what was encoded on the innermost patterns of Perseverance parachute? It was the motto, "Dare Mighty Things." Perseverance and Ginny and her support teams at JPL have done that and then some. So heres to many, many more years of daring mighty things.
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