Today is February 20th, 2026. I'm Maria Varmazis. I'm Alice Carruth and this is T-minus. SpaceX has resumed landing a Falcon 9 booster on a drone ship stationed among the Bahamas. A consortium has been selected to carry out Japan's Defence Satellite Constellation Project. MDA Space has launched a wholly owned subsidiary exclusively focused on delivering mission critical capabilities for Canada's national defence priorities outside the space domain. NASA completed a successful wet dress rehearsal for the SLS rocket that will be used for the Artemis II mission. NASA has released findings from a report by the program investigation team examining the Boeing CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test. Happy Friday everybody, happy Friday. Alice though, I'm not super happy. Today is Alice's last day with us here at NTUK and it is also our last daily show. I know, it is sad but the show is not going away. Maria will be sharing a little bit more about what's coming up next after today's intelligence briefing. Let's dive in and keep it positive Maria. Okay, okay, I'll cheer up. [Music] First up, NASA has released findings from a report by the program investigation team examining the Boeing CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test as part of the agency's commercial crew program. The CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test as part of the CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test. The CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test as part of the CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test. The CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test as part of the CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test. The CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test as part of the CST-100 Starliner crewed flight test. While there were no injuries and the mission regained control prior to docking, this highest level classification designation recognizes that there was potential for a significant mishap. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman shared a letter with all employees outlining the findings and what was to come next for the agency. He started with this scathing put down. Let me begin with the most important point. Starliner has designed and engineered deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware. It's decision making and leadership that if left unchecked could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight. Ouch! So, does the blame lie all with Boeing in this instance? Well Isaacman says no. Here's his explanation. Mistakes incurred from programs inception and continued throughout execution, including contractual management, oversight posture, technical rigor, and leadership decision making. Boeing built the spacecraft and from the onset NASA approved variances and we agreed to fly it. As development progressed design compromises and inadequate hardware qualification extended beyond NASA's complete understanding. Now variances exist across all major aerospace programs and by themselves are not unusual. The engineering reality however is that Starliner with its qualification deficiencies is less reliable for crew survival than other crewed vehicles and that was as noted by the report. But at NASA we managed the contract. We accepted the vehicle, we launched the crew to space, we made decisions from docking through post mission actions. A considerable portion of the responsibility and accountability rests here. And he added this. NASA's limited touch acquisition and management posture left the agency without the system's knowledge and development insight required to confidently certify a human rated spacecraft and insight versus oversight was not applied consistently. Second, Boeing's propulsion system design and certification approach allowed hardware to operate outside qualification limits, which is incompatible with crew safety margins. Third, NASA's programmatic desire to maintain two dissimilar crew transportation systems influence technical and operational risk discussions. Now it is through that lens that we examine leadership decision making through the various phases of the mission. So what is next for the CST 100 Starliner? Will it be scrapped? Well, the simple answer at this point is no. NASA has doubled down on its promise to work with Boeing on the issues with the spacecraft and Boeing says that the report will reinforce ongoing efforts to strengthen their work and the work of all commercial crew partners in support of the mission and crew safety. They plan to work with NASA to ensure readiness for future Starliner missions and remain committed to NASA's vision for two commercial crew providers. It remains to be seen if Starliner will be used for crewed missions to the ISS over the next few years. And while that doom and gloom press conference was being held, the wet dress rehearsal for the space launch system rocket that will be used for Artemis II's mission was being conducted. And we're all pleased to say that it seems like it was mission success for NASA. Yay! There were a few moments where observers saw course for concern. Communication seemed to be lost with the ground crew for a short time and we all waited with bated breath to see whether there was going to be any hydrogen leaks again. News flashed there weren't. Engineers loaded more than 700,000 gallons of liquid propellant into the rocket, sent a closeout crew to the launch pad to demonstrate closing the Orion spacecraft's hatches and completed two runs of terminal count. Among the observers at Kennedy Space Center were the Artemis II crew who were at the launch control center. While engineers reviewed data from the test, the Artemis crew will be entering quarantine later today. NASA says they have work to do before launch, lessons and tweaks from the rehearsal, but they're targeting March the 6th as the first launch opportunity. Very exciting news. I'm so excited for that. The first head to Canada now and MDA Space has launched a wholly owned subsidiary exclusively focused on delivering mission critical capabilities for Canada's national defense priorities outside of the space domain. The subsidiary will be known as 49 North and it will be headquartered in Ottawa and will build on more than five decades of trusted Canadian defense delivery and prime contractor execution from MDA Space. MDA says that 49 North will offer the engineering discipline, operational reliability, mission assurance and program execution that are all needed for large defense programs. Over in Japan and a consortium has been selected to carry out the Ministry of Defense's satellite constellation project. Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Skyperfect JSAT Corporation, Mitsui-ko, or Mitsui-anko, is inspected, is in pursuit for Kyushu pioneers of space, Mitsui-Busan Aerospace Corporation and Axel Space will collaborate on the constellation. The project is a private finance initiative project aimed at building a satellite constellation operated by a private sector company to deliver or to ensure stable acquisition of imagery intelligence necessary for ensuring the effectiveness of standoff defense capabilities. I'm sure there'll be more information shared in the coming months. And to our friends in the Bahamas, look out because SpaceX is back to landing off the Caribbean islands. For just the second time, a Falcon 9 booster returned to a drone ship stationed among the islands overnight. The mission took off at the end of the SLS wet dress rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center to deploy 29 Starlink satellites. That's kind of nuts when you think about it. Yeah, less than eight and a half minutes after liftoff, B1077 landed on the drone ship. Just read the instructions would be the name of that drone ship, which was situated off the coast of Exuma Island. It was the 150th landing on that vessel and the 573rd booster landing for SpaceX to date. Now that wraps up our last daily T-minus Intel briefing. Don't cry. You'll find more information on all the stories mentioned by following the links in the selected reading section of the show notes. And don't fret, crew. The show is not going away. So stay with us to find out what's coming next. [Music] Welcome back. All right, Alice, let's start with you. You are leaving N2K and you are going on to do amazing new things. Tell us more about that. Yeah, it's really tough, isn't it? When you're leaving your baby behind, and I'm taking on somebody else's baby. I have got the privilege of joining HireOrbits. Michelle Lucas and I have been working together for a long time. And I know you heard from her very recently when she was at the commercial space week in Florida. She's talking about the 10th anniversary of the HireOrbits organization and the 100th Go For Launch event. And in that time, we have worked together several times and she's been saying for years, "I need somebody else to come on board and help me run this thing." And very sweetly has asked me to come and help her, which is kind of crazy. That's awesome. I keep having to pinch me moments to be able to do this. But as you know, STEM has been a passion project of mine for years being involved with the IREC since 2018. And in fact, I was supposed to be doing a Go For Launch in 2020. That was the same year that I met Michelle back in late 2019. So this has been a long time coming and it really is something that I genuinely care about. And I'm hoping it means that we can set up students for success, whether it's careers in space or any other STEM field, because what she really does focus on as a former astronaut trainer is the presentation skills that are required in life. Those soft skills that are overlooked in the classrooms. And I've seen it really transform a lot of these students in just a few days. So I'm very excited to be going, but very sad to be leaving you. As sad as I am that we won't be working together daily, I know our paths will cross in the future. And most importantly, this is such an area of strength and passion for you, Alice. And I'm just really thrilled for you and congratulations to you. I know how much this is really close to your heart and the mission is so important. I'm thrilled for you and Michelle and also for all the kids whose lives you're going to change. So thank you for doing that work. That's amazing. I have laughed with Michelle many a times. She does this great presentation about her background and how passionate she was about being in space and how she wanted to be an astronaut from a very young age. And I'm always like laughing. I'm like, hang on a second. I knew nothing about space until I was in my 30s, not to give away my age too much. You know, if you'd asked me what Leo was in my 20s, I probably would have said a star sign. So the fact that I've got to this point in just a few years is really being around a lot of these education outreach programs. And it's certainly what I was passionate about when I was working at Spaceport America was making sure that the community around the space understood what space was for them and how it can improve their lives. So the fact that I get to take that nationally and talk about it and give them a different perspective, and I think that's what I think is really important in an engineering which Michelle is and a lot of the NASA astronauts she works with come from the engineering and scientific background. But having somebody who's just a good old communicator, just a journalist standing up and talking to them. We need communicators too. Yeah, hopefully that'll give them a bit of an idea of the different career opportunities that are available to them in the industry, which is what I think is really important to keep drilling home. I totally agree, especially in this moment in time. I think that is so crucial. A lot of people that you will be speaking to will definitely relate to not having wanted to be an astronaut from a child age, because that's the same. So those folks are definitely amazing, but it's not most of us. So yeah, and I think that's so important to reach everybody. So that Alice, I'm genuinely really thrilled as much as I am seriously going to miss you. It's been an incredible three years working with you, and I've learned so much from you. Thank you for everything. This show truly could not have happened without you. So like I'm seriously going to miss you, but I know where to find you. Which sounded threatening. I didn't mean it that way. I want to make sure that our listeners can keep up with what you're going to be up to. So how should they find you? So you can check out higherorbits.org. That's the organization that I'm going to be working with as the CEO. You can also find me on LinkedIn as you know, I'm very active on there. It's one of my moments that I always posting things. I'm going to be posting even more about students and all their amazing achievements that they're up to. And hopefully people will reach out to me and just say, hey, how can we bring this to our community? Because we do take it on the road. This year we are going to be in Illinois. We're talking about coming back to New Mexico. We're going to Texas. We're looking at California. But really we can go anywhere and we really want to be able to bring this program to kids' backyards, particularly in places where they maybe don't have access to space. I know Huntsville, Obama actually had a lot of problems getting people to sign up and they laughed and said, well, the students around here are used to having space programs put on for them. And I was like, wow, what a tough place to be with your students. But you know, we will, we hopefully will take it to places that maybe don't have that kind of access normally and teach them about the opportunities that microgravity brings for them and give them the opportunity to be able to compete to have their projects flown to the ISS. We've got four up there at the moment, four more are going up this quarter and there'll be more on the books in the coming weeks and months and years. So hopefully you'll see me at some launches in the future. And you're happy place. Yes, in my happy place, watching Rockets launches. So yes, hopefully if you have any ideas about where I can bring it to, please reach out to me. I'd love to be able to do that. That's awesome. Well, again, congratulations and we'll definitely all stay in touch and listeners definitely reach out to Alice and any of you will definitely want to work with higher orbits. And now I get to do the awkward segue of what's happening to T minus. So the we are not going away friends. The daily show is winding down today is our last daily show, but emphasis on daily. We are going to be going weekly from this point on. So we will be releasing you episodes every Sunday. We are going to be releasing interviews that we've done and there's those are going to be releasing over the next few weeks. So you'll still see fresh content from us for the next few weeks. As for more specifics on our transformation, watch this space. We're working on it behind the scenes, but we definitely want to hear from you wonderful listeners. We've already gotten some lovely feedback and I thank you for that. So email us your thoughts, your feedback, your wish list, anything like that. Space@N2K.com is the way to get in touch with us. And we are also going to be relaunching these signals and space newsletter. So if you go to our website, yeah, I know, right? Space@N2K.com and just click on newsletter at the top of the website. That's a great way to sign up. So when that starts publishing again, you'll get it fresh in your inbox. But yes, we are not going away. We are just changing. So a little bit of puberty happening for the podcast. Bear with us everybody, but we're hanging around and we'll see you again. So, but in the meantime, Alice, it has been truly a pleasure working with you these last three years. Man, we've gone to so many events. We've done so many interviews like so, oh my gosh, I said I wasn't going to cry. I know. And I'm trying my best to stay upbeat and I'm smiling away at you. But equally, I'm like, oh gosh, she's going to make me cry. I'm sorry. I'm genuinely so excited for you because I know how close to your heart this mission is. So I'm just like, you're going to, you're going to nail it. You're going to take over the world in the best possible way, like not an evil way, but in a good way. And I can't, I can't wait to see what you're going to do. I just cannot wait. So just congratulations and onward and upward, truly. Onward and upward for both of us. And honestly, I'm so pleased that you're still going to have T minus. It's just not going to be a daily podcast. And that's okay. A lot of people have told us that they can't keep up with every single day and we get that because lives happen. So hopefully we'll get some kind of new transformative way of communicating what's going on in the space industry that people can keep up with as a daily. And your interviews are great. And I have loved working with you. We list everybody that, and there is a huge team behind the scenes. It really is a me and you baby. We're the ones that work on this every single day. So I'm sorry that you're losing your other half to the parenting pool. Split custody now. No, it's okay. It's okay. Alice, it's quite all right. I'm just, I'm very, very happy for you. That's really, it is a place of love for me. I'm just like, I'm just thrilled for you. And the mission that you're working on is so important. Like podcasts are, you know, we love them, but you're talking about changing people's lives. That's really monumental. So that's so great. Okay, I'm getting really weepy now. You weep. Do you want me to read the final credits? Here we go.
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N2K Senior Producer is Alice Carruth. Thank you for everything Alice. Okay, I said I wasn't going to cry. Thank you for a wonderful three years. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're 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 so much for listening. We'll see you on Sunday. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
