The geek, the nerd, and the wonk.

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>> Maria Varmazis: T-Minus launched in April this year with quiet fanfare, but we've had over 100,000 downloads since we started, and we appreciate you, our growing audience. So as we grow now, we're also going to try something a little different for our Friday episode today. Brace yourself. The geek, the nerd, and the wonk will be on today's show to do a look at our fave stories from the week that was, but who's who? Well, we'll let you decide on that.

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Today is July 21, 2023. I'm Maria Varmazis.

>> Alice Carruth: I'm Alice Carruth, and this is T-Minus.

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>> Maria Varmazis: ESA gives Thales Alenia Space another slice of the GSG pie. German satellite startup, Constellr, raises 13 million euros in seed round led by Karista. Amazon is building a $120-million US-dollar processing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for its Kuiper satellites.

>> Alice Carruth: And we're changing up our format for today's show, and we'll be including a team talk with myself, Maria, and our executive producer, Brandon Karpf, on the space stories we think are most interesting from this week.

>> Maria Varmazis: It's a fun one. You don't want to miss it.

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>> Maria Varmazis: Now Happy Friday everybody. Let's take a quick look at our intel briefing for today. ESA's-next generation of PNT infrastructure continues to take shape with new contracts announced today supporting the Galileo Second Generation. Not a big surprise that Thales Alenia Space, which is already making half of the new Galileo Second Generation, or GSG satellites, also just won a contract with ESA for GSG's ground segment system engineering activities and also mission cybersecurity. The ground and system engineering contract, which will come online to support the G2G satellites through launch and early orbit, nets 300 million euros for Thales Alenia Space. The cybersecurity contract, which is worth 60 million euros, will work to secure sensitive satellite data from quantum decryption and also shore up incident response capabilities and network monitoring for the G2G satellites.

>> Alice Carruth: Constellr, a thermal satellite data startup based in Germany, raised 70 million euros in a seed round led by Karista. With this new funding, Constellr plans to launch two new thermal-imaging satellites next year and scale up their services to meet demand for global thermal imaging data. Wow, that's a mouthful. According to their CEO, Max Gulde, their data is especially impactful for the agricultural industry in helping them adapt and become more resilient to climate change. Constellr previously received 5 million euros in funding from ESA and the European Commission for providing Copernicus with its thermal imaging data.

>> Maria Varmazis: The Ghanaian government has approved a national space policy, paving the way for governmental ministries, departments, and agencies in Ghana to better leverage space technologies and coordinate how they consume data from satellites. The Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, Dr. Kwaku Afriyie, said this new policy will also help streamline work between the public and private sector working in Ghana to grow the workforce and build out space-related infrastructure.

>> Alice Carruth: Amazon is building a 120-million US-dollar processing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for its thousands of planned Kuiper internet satellites. The 100,000-square-foot facility is part of the roughly $10 billion US dollars that Amazon has vowed to invest in its broadband network to compete against SpaceX's Starlink. Amazon plans to have its 3,000-plus satellite Kuiper network operational in 2026.

>> Maria Varmazis: The US House has approved the reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration for the next five years. The bill, which is formally titled The Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act, overwhelmingly passed through with a bipartisan vote and will now head to the Senate. The legislation, if passed, could see the agency getting more involved in space traffic management.

>> Alice Carruth: The US Space Training and Readiness Command, better known as Star Command, has held its first change-of-command ceremony. Major General Shawn Bratton handed its reins to Brigadier General Timothy Sejba during a ceremony at Peterson Space Force Base. Chief of Space Operations, General Chance Saltzman, attended the ceremony and told the crowd that the command was vital to the success of the new Space Force, which relies on highly capable tech workers to oversee the country's network of military satellites.

>> Maria Varmazis: And an errata note from us. We covered a story yesterday about Planet IQ, and we realized on reflection that the read was a little deceptive. Their press release made it seem like they were awarded the $59.6 million contract. But in reality, they were granted an $8 million task order as part of a larger multiple-vendor contract. We apologize for possibly misleading you with that news.

>> Alice Carruth: We couldn't finish up on the read for today without mentioning that SpaceX's Booster 9 has arrived at the orbital launch site ahead of the static fire next week. The rollout was a key milestone in the campaign ahead of the second flight of the world's most powerful rocket, and we can't wait to see that bad boy back in action.

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>> Maria Varmazis: And that's right, and that wraps it up for our briefing this Friday. As always, we have a number of great stories in our selected reading section of our show notes, including one about how most Americans feel about space tourism. Check out all those stories and more at space.n2k.com. And coming up next is our new Friday segment, Team Talk with T-Minus producer Alice Carruth and executive producer Brandon Karpf joining me to discuss our top stories for the week. And hey, T-Minus crew, tune in tomorrow for T-Minus Deep Space, our show for extended interviews, special editions, and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. Tomorrow we have Robert Aillon talking about his role in steering Ecuador towards signing the Artemis Accords and his thoughts on making the case for space in developing nations. Check it out while you're mowing the lawn, grocery shopping, folding laundry, or driving your kids to the game. You don't want to miss it.

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>> Maria Varmazis: Welcome back everybody, and happy Friday. So for this Friday's episode, we're trying something a little new here at T-Minus. It's a new weekly segment that we are calling Team Talk, where T-Minus producer, Alice Carruth and executive producer, Brandon Karpf, are joining me on the mic to chat about our favorite space stories for the week. Alice and Brandon, welcome. So let's dive in. Alice, let's start with you for our favorite story of the week. Tell me about your pick.

>> Alice Carruth: So we didn't actually cover this story in our news headlines this week, but I picked it, because as you know, it's something that's very precious to me. But Virgin Galactic has announced its first passengers for its private flight. They're setting a date of August the 10th. It's the first flight to take tourists to space, and they also announced the people that are going to be on board, which is what I find really fascinating. So first time ever, they're going to have two women from Antigua going to space, and the one that also really excites me is John Goodwin, who is an 80-year-old former Olympian who also has Parkinson's disease. So a completely different sort of person to send to space.

>> Brandon Karpf: Have you seen a bit of concerns over that choice? I mean, it seems a little controversial to me.

>> Alice Carruth: Not so much concerns. You know, I actually saw Dr. Sian Proctor, who I'm a huge fan of, write how great it was to see representation with this crew, as she mentioned the first two, Keisha and her daughter, Anastasia, from Antigua as great to have females from the Caribbean on board.

>> Brandon Karpf: Yes.

>> Alice Carruth: But I really think is exciting, like I say, to see John come on board who's 80, who's got Parkinson's, who's obviously someone who was really fit but is dealing with a disability now.

>> Maria Varmazis: Yes, and also, I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but his age. I always think of astronauts is like pinnacle of human physical, oh, you know, all that goodness. But you know, you've got someone who's in their 80s, that's awesome, because you hear people going, oh, I'll never go to space. I'm too old. Well, maybe that's not the case anymore.

>> Alice Carruth: So I don't think he's going to be the oldest. I think that still lies with Captain Kirk. But it is exciting to see, yes.

>> Brandon Karpf: The Shat, yeah.

>> Alice Carruth: Yes, the Shat. So, it's going to be exciting to again see somebody who's older but also with physical issues. You know, Captain Kirk is in pretty good health for his age.

>> Maria Varmazis: William Shatner, just to be clear in case anyone doesn't know who we're talking --

>> Alice Carruth: No, Captain Kirk. Definitely Captain Kirk. So, yeah, I think it's really incredibly, you know, courageous of John, actually, to put himself out there and a really good opportunity for science. I think that's the thing that excites me most about sending people from different backgrounds and with disabilities to spaces. All of the sudden, we've got an opportunity to see how they react in that microgravity environment, and I'm really hopeful that Virgin Galactic and John work with a Parkinson's disease company to see if they can do some experiments and research during his four minutes in microgravity. Because that could really lead to some incredible information to hopefully improve humanity.

>> Brandon Karpf: I'm going to take the contrarian approach. I think in the context of the Titan disaster, this is a little irresponsible. So I mean, there's already been a tremendous amount of concern expressed by industry, maybe not so much industry insiders, but the people who are on the edge of this industry about the viability of commercial space and space tourism, and whether it's a smart idea. And so, if this goes well, I agree. I mean, it would be a great opportunity for science representation. If this doesn't go well, it's just adding fuel on the fire of, you know, already a contentious situation where these --

>> Alice Carruth: Oh, Brandon, you naysayer.

>> Maria Varmazis: I'm just going let you two fight. All right, I'll just go.

>> Brandon Karpf: You know, they're still trying to convince folks, especially Virgin Galactic, that this is a viable market, and that this is something that people not only will want to do, but will spend the money on and that it's worth investing in. You know, if you look at their capital structure with how much investment they've taken just to get to this point, I mean, they're already in a tenuous position. So maybe that's part of the risk decision.

>> Alice Carruth: Yeah, I know, I hear you. I do.

>> Brandon Karpf: Yeah, and my concern is if it doesn't go well, that is just going to end space tourism as we know it.

>> Alice Carruth: As somebody who's actually seen Virgin Galactic fly several times in my previous role as -- at Spaceport America, they wouldn't do it with any risk involved, and I know that for a fact. I know, the engineers. They're an incredible group that work on this, and they've got a lot of experience. You know, this company isn't just a brand-new company. They've been working on it for a very long time. They've brought in experts from other companies as well. I think it's going to go really well. I think it's quite amazing to see a mother and daughter dynamic on this like they had on the Titan disaster, which is quite a controversy thing. I know that George Whitesides --

>> Brandon Karpf: Oh, yeah, the father and son.

>> Alice Carruth: Yeah, and George Whitesides and Loretta Whitesides actually bought tickets for their honeymoon but decided to go on separate flights for that reason. So it is interesting to see that mother-daughter thing going on, but good luck to them. I mean, what a great opportunity to go and get that overview effect.

>> Maria Varmazis: We could probably talk about this for a solid half hour because we definitely could, and I'd hate to be like, we need to move on to the next story. But we do need to move onto the next story. It's a great point, though. I want to hear you guys argue about that more. But Brandon, you've got a story that you picked for today. So can you tell me a bit about that one?

>> Brandon Karpf: Yeah, so this was a little bit of a research paper coming out of the Center for Growth and Opportunity, which is a research group at Utah State University, kind of a technology and policy group. The writer of the story testified before Congress kind of about of -- the state of industry regulation in the space industry, and the need for, really, a more effective regulatory regime for the whole industry, both within the United States and globally. We covered it as a selected reading earlier in the week, but I wanted to highlight some of the primary concerns. Essentially, Congress is at this point where they have pretty much allowed permissionless innovation in the space industry, broadly speaking. And, you know, we're hearing more and more calls for more of a, I wouldn't use a heavy-handed, you know, regulatory approach, but at least a more engaged regulatory policy framework from the US. One of the problems right now is the status quo is that it's a fragmented system. So you've got the FCC, the FAA, NASA, DoD, all playing some part in regulating and controlling the standards within the space industry, but you know, important context is none of those are broad regulatory controls. The authorities are a little tenuous, and in fact, the writer points out the fact that there was a Supreme Court ruling, West Virginia versus EPA, that totally limits regulatory power based on things that -- such as vague concepts like, "the public interest." And so, when you look at the charter for organizations like FCC, like FAA, like NASA, they might not actually have the authority to broadly regulate these industries, and there needs to be more done by Congress to give authority to an organization and centralize that type of control for a couple of reasons, primarily to maintain competitive interest, US competitive interest in what's a rapidly growing global market. So I thought this was an important perspective that we just haven't been hearing much lately that's worth discussing.

>> Maria Varmazis: I think it's interesting that this story comes right after Alice's story, too. It kind of dovetails nicely, doesn't it?

>> Alice Carruth: I was going to say, we kind of touched on this the other day in our news reads when we were talking about building a spaceport whilst figuring out the policies to go at the same time in the UK, and I think you're absolutely right. We do plan for communications, if there's an accident, but who's in charge of all of the regulatory side of things? We've seen this with SpaceX recently. So I definitely think this is a real hot topic for us to discuss.

>> Brandon Karpf: Yeah, we had I mean, we had John Dagle on earlier, right, who is the Policy Chair at National Space Society just this week, and you know, he gave his perspective specifically on the learning period, right, and the potential expiration of the learning period this fall. And his point was, you know, of course, the -- that regulation stifles innovation, which is something we hear again and again, but you know, there's also the countering perspective that there -- some degree of regulation and standard setting can actually enable innovation, right? You think about standardizing the USB charging port, right, and every organization can innovate around a standard protocol, or when you think about WiFi 802.11, right, a standardized protocol that everyone can innovate their systems around.

>> Maria Varmazis: Or you have the xkcd comment, where do you go from 41 standards to 42 standards. You know, the one I'm talking about, right?

>> Brandon Karpf: I do. Yeah, I do. Yep.

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah, okay.

>> Brandon Karpf: Most definitely. No, there is such as a thing as standards creep, right, and how that can affect things for sure, but right now, I think, what we see is rapid innovation, rapid growth, rapid changing, which is great, right? You know, it's a market that's projected to grow to a trillion dollars a year in short order. However, because there are more players, because there are more companies, there's more new technologies. It's getting to a point where Congress, I don't think they can continue to sit on the sidelines. So I think there needs to be a national space law and national space policy that controls who's in charge, because right now, it's not NASA. It's not FCC. It's not FAA. It's not DoD. There is no one in charge.

>> Alice Carruth: As somebody who has worked with startups in space, regulation can be a massive, massive problem when it comes to stifling things. I mean, you've just got to look at the whole SpaceX versus Boeing situation that both won the contract at the same time. NASA has been far more involved in the Boeing situation, and Starliner and have put more regulations in place because of that, and yet, they are so much further behind than SpaceX. And I'm not saying it's purely down to that, but I definitely think there is something to be said about having too many hurdles to overcome.

>> Maria Varmazis: That's certainly what a lot of the rumors are, at least where the discussions. It seems to be what a lot of people are thinking. I don't think you're alone in saying that at all. It's that really difficult line to tow. Whenever I ask people about this exact issue, it's just everyone's like, yeah, we could use a little more, but then they point to the Boeing situation as exactly what people want to avoid. And it's like, well, what's the kind of happy medium, and everyone's kind of like, I hope someone else figures it out. Which is -- which is like, not really comforting, but it's sort of the reality.

>> Brandon Karpf: This is a tale as old as time, though. I mean, this is as long as technology policy has been the thing in this country right, even back to Vannevar Bush and, you know, the Office of Science, Technology, and Policy, thinking about what is the correct balance between creating an environment that allows for innovation and creating an environment that stifles it? Right now, there is pretty much very little control over what is going up, what is going out, what is going around other than, you know, some regulation around spectrum allocation. You know, that's -- even then, you look at Starlink leaking --

>> Maria Varmazis: That's a mass- --

>> Brandon Karpf: -- leaking radiation in various parts of the spectrum, it's clearly not very well regulated. That's concerning, right? We're starting to get secondary and tertiary impacts in other industries, in other parts of the planet, in other parts of the economy. That is exactly what regulation and standardization is supposed to control against.

>> Maria Varmazis: So I'm going to stop you there, Brandon, and as much as we could probably talk about this for another 30 minutes, I do think we need to get to Maria's story.

>> Brandon Karpf: To read her hate mail. Go for it.

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah, you both have started this whole thing, this fighting. It's great. I love it.

>> Brandon Karpf: Space@n2k.com.

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah, just send us the hate. It's all good. Mine should be maybe a little more innocent, I don't know. Mine's about Space Force, adding a third launch provider for NSSL phase three. In this one, we did talk about it this week, and it's been kind of big news, and I don't know, I feel like maybe we just need to talk about it a little more. So for context, the NSSL. Phase three is for financial year 2025 to 2029, and we'll get the final RFP for that this year. So we're just sort of learning about the modifications for it, and we talked about this phase three a lot a couple of months ago, when we learned about the two-lane approach that Space Force is doing, where phase one is allowing the up and comers to kind of have their own space to sandbox a little bit, and they may or may not be able to meet the stringent like Space Force Space Systems Command mission requirements, but Space Force is giving them the space to learn, I guess, to get their training wheels on. I don't want to be too blasé about it, but it's like a really cool idea. But now they're, you know, Space Force is saying that in lane two, where the more established players, specifically SpaceX and ULA have been, now there's space for a third player to come in. Space Force has been saying that anyone in lane two, I'm going to quote here, "Lane two will include missions that require full mission assurance with SSC-certified launch vehicles. Lane two payloads require launches to more stressing orbits necessitating higher performance launch systems and complex security and integration requirements." So it's --

>> Brandon Karpf: Talk about regulation.

>> Maria Varmazis: We've -- right? Yeah, it's like we had a nice little dovetail. We didn't do this on purpose, but it was great. So when we were talking about this story this week, and I don't know if we even want to say it, but we were all like, okay, who's -- who is this guy going to be? Who is this player going to be in lane two? Do we want to speculate? Do we not?

>> Brandon Karpf: Yeah, let's speculate.

>> Maria Varmazis: Do we want to say?

>> Brandon Karpf: I mean, I could see, right, who could it be, Rocket Lab? Relativity maybe.

>> Maria Varmazis: We all said Rocket Lab, kind of like in unison. We're all like rocket Rocket Lab, so --

>> Brandon Karpf: Rocket Lab, right. They were supposed to test this week, or was it last week, down in New Zealand?

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah.

>> Alice Carruth: It was this week.

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah, it was this week, and they've got sort of the awards for this phase three, lane two, go out Q4 next year. So they've still got some more time.

>> Brandon Karpf: I'd be curious. Did they specify the type of orbits. I know, they said more strenuous orbits, but did they actually specify which ones? Because I think that, really, is the driving factor there.

>> Alice Carruth: No, the RFP here is kind of in the draft phase. You know what it's like with this RFP process, and we've talked about the process before and how ridiculous it is. So I do feel for a lot of these companies. So they're just going through the drafting, and now the draft is saying it's been updated, and it's going to add this third in. So we just don't know the particulars yet. I don't think the details have been released.

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah, we'll know, by the end of this year it sounds like, but I'm just wondering what this means for like ULA. I mean, for SpaceX, it's like, okay, they've got more competition. What about for ULA, because there's been sort of like, people are nervous for them. What is seen as significant --

>> Brandon Karpf: Yeah, it's really a replacement for ULA as opposed to backfill.

>> Maria Varmazis: Oh, could you imagine?

>> Alice Carruth: You really are being prejudicial today, aren't you?

>> Brandon Karpf: Well, they're -- I mean, they keep delaying their rocket. I mean, ULA is having problems.

>> Alice Carruth: That's normal in space. We've had this conversation. You know, there's one thing that's inevitable when it comes to space is delay.

>> Brandon Karpf: Yeah, okay.

>> Maria Varmazis: Right.

>> Brandon Karpf: I don't buy the rosy picture coming out of, you know, that Tony Bruno is painting for everybody over there.

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I like your skepticism. I think it's warranted. So are we imagining a world where this announcement goes out end of next year at SpaceX Rocket Lab, and some company that's not ULA?

>> Alice Carruth: Possibly. Maybe then that gives the opportunity for Relativity. Who knows? I mean, there are some really big players coming up that could possibly make huge differences in the next year. We just don't know. It's a massive speculation. It's for all of us to get excited about and wait and see. Really?

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah, yeah, it's -- and it's really interesting to me that in the article about this, it was based on industry feedback and the need to increase resiliency in the face of pacing challenge from countries like China. It was just like, literally, we're watching what China's doing and we're going, oh, bleep, and let's get -- let's ramp up those capabilities as fast as possible.

>> Brandon Karpf: I think when it comes to this for the launch provider that they select, it sounds like it's going to come down to those, the orbit requirements, like what orbits the rocket has to reach. To me, that's the hardest engineering challenge. Obviously, SpaceX has proven that they can reach whatever is needed. ULA has been able to, and so for this third, it's obviously not just LEO.

>> Maria Varmazis: They've got to get to GEO.

>> Brandon Karpf: Right. They're going have to get to GEO. They're going to have to get to a highly elliptical, polar orbit. When we think about what the government is interested in, right, this proliferated warfare architecture, like these satellites are going to be in all of these different inclinations. Some of them are very hard to get to. That's, to me, the biggest challenge for this next provider. So it's probably whoever proves that they can get to those orbits first.

>> Maria Varmazis: And how fast they can do it. Yeah, yeah.

>> Alice Carruth: Yeah.

>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah, and also the speed at which they can ramp up. So I guess we'll be watching with great interest. Well, Brandon, Alice, this was amazing. What a great team talk, just slightly controversial. We're going to get some great hate mail. I just love it.

>> Brandon Karpf: I hope.

>> Maria Varmazis: That means people are listening. It's great.

>> Alice Carruth: No hate mail, but we do love feedback. So if people do want to contribute to the conversation, they can always email us, space@n2k.com.

>> Maria Varmazis: Let's do it again next Friday everybody. This was awesome.

>> Brandon Karpf: Have a great weekend.

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>> Maria Varmazis: And that's it for T-Minus for July 21, 2023. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com.

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>> Alice Carruth: We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. You can email us at space@n2k.com or submit the survey in the show notes. Your feedback ensures that we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry.

>> Maria Varmazis: And we're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T-Minus are part of the daily routine of many 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.

>> Alice Carruth: N2K Strategic Workforce Intelligence optimizes the value of your biggest investment, your people. We make you smarter about your team while making your team smarter. Learn more at n2k.com.

>> Maria Varmazis: This episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Mixing by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music and sound design by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Brandon Karpf. Our chief intelligence officer is Eric Tillman, and I'm your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.

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