Ariane 6 back in action.

Summary

T-Minus Space Daily: Ariane 6 Back in Action
Hosted by N2K Networks
Release Date: March 6, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of T-Minus Space Daily, hosted by Maria Varmazas of N2K Networks, listeners are treated to a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in the global space industry. From successful rocket launches to financial insights and collaborative efforts enhancing space situational awareness, this episode delves into the multifaceted world of space exploration and commercialization. Senior Data Analyst at the Space Foundation, Tom Roeder, shares his expert analysis on industry trends, while additional stories highlight burgeoning activities across the sector.

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Major Headlines

1. Ariane 6 Launch Success

   • Timestamp [02:35]
     Maria Varmazas reports the successful liftoff of Ariane 6 from French Guiana, marking the return of Europe's prominent rocket to active duty. The rocket, carrying the French spy satellite CSO3, achieved insertion into a sun-synchronous orbit approximately 500 miles above Earth. This launch is a pivotal component of France's Muses program, aimed at enhancing multinational space-based imaging capabilities.

2. Firefly Aerospace's Alpha Rocket Mission

   • Timestamp [01:12]
     Firefly Aerospace is slated to launch its Alpha rocket for a dedicated Lockheed Martin mission no earlier than March 15. This mission, named Alpha Flight 6: Message in a Booster, will deploy Lockheed Martin's LM400 spacecraft from Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, marking the first of up to 25 missions under a multi-launch agreement over the next five years.

3. Blacksky’s Financial Performance

   • Timestamp [01:12]
     Blacksky reported a revenue of $102.1 million for the full year 2024, reflecting an 8% increase from the previous year. Despite the revenue growth, the company posted a net loss of $57 million. Notably, Blacksky launched its first Gen 3 satellite, delivering high-quality imagery surpassing customer expectations.

4. Red Hat and Axiom Collaboration

   • Timestamp [01:12]
     Red Hat and Axiom Space announced a collaboration on the Axiom Data Center Unit 1 (AX DCU1), targeting a spring launch to the International Space Station (ISS). This orbital data center will test applications in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data fusion, and space cybersecurity, advancing Axiom Space’s mission to integrate industries into the space environment.

5. AST Space Mobile, Kahan Space, and Leo Labs Partnership

   • Timestamp [01:12]
     The trio of AST Space Mobile, Kahan Space, and Leo Labs partnered to enhance Space Force tracking capabilities for satellites launched into low Earth orbit (LEO). Their collaborative efforts aim to reduce the collision avoidance gap (COLA) from an average of two months to just one week, significantly improving space situational awareness.

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In-Depth Analysis with Tom Roeder

Interview with Tom Roeder, Senior Data Analyst at the Space Foundation

Tom Roeder provides valuable insights into the Space Foundation's latest annual report on space launches, sharing trends and future projections that are shaping the industry.

Record-Breaking Launch Cadence

• Timestamp [09:55]
  Roeder highlights that 2024 saw a remarkable launch every 34 hours, a significant increase from the previous decade where launches were measured in weeks. He notes, "2024 hit that mark with a launch every 34 hours. It's interesting what that number does not contain. That doesn't include your New Shepard space tourism launches or four flights of Starship."

Dominance of Commercial Launches

• Timestamp [09:55]
  The commercial sector now dominates over 70% of all launches, with SpaceX's Falcon 9 being the predominant vehicle, accounting for 132 out of 259 launches in the past year. Roeder comments, "Commercial launch is being dominated 70% plus with much of that coming, of course, from SpaceX."

Falcon 9’s Reliability and Future Trends

• Timestamp [11:29]
  Addressing concerns about Falcon 9's reusability, especially after recent failures, Roeder reassures listeners: "Every rocket launch is hard and every rocket comes with degrees of concern. I don't think what we've seen with Falcon 9 is at all abnormal... we're learning new things."

Payload Trends and Future Projections

• Timestamp [13:11]
  Despite a slight decrease in spacecraft sent to orbit in 2024, Roeder anticipates an acceleration in both launches and payloads in 2025. He underscores the emergence of new launch vehicles from companies like Gilmour Space in Australia and Rocket Factory Augsburg in Europe, potentially introducing up to two dozen new rockets to the market.

Workforce and Investment Insights

• Timestamp [15:10]
  Discussing workforce dynamics, Roeder notes that while companies like Blue Origin have reduced their workforce, overall job openings in the space sector have increased from 15,000 to 19,500 since 2022. On investment trends, he observes a surge in mergers and acquisitions as startups become acquisition targets for larger corporations like Raytheon and Airbus.

Non-Traditional Space Market Trends

• Timestamp [19:13]
  Roeder highlights the integration of space-based solutions in non-traditional markets, particularly in the data sector. Companies are leveraging Earth observation and high-speed data pipelines, with projections indicating the potential for a global laser network equivalent to fiber optics using just 600 satellites in mid-Earth orbit.

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Additional Stories and Updates

• Intuitive Machines IM2 Mission: Scheduled to land the Athena lunar lander on the Moon, the mission represents a significant milestone in lunar exploration.

• Sierra Space’s Reusable Spacecraft: Anticipated to perform a reusable flight to and from the ISS, showcasing advancements in horizontal reentry technologies.

• Upcoming Launches:

  • Starship Flight 8 set for June 30, 2025, from Texas.
  • Crew 10’s Launch Update and Satex Fire’s Funding from UKSA.
  • Collaborations in Space-Based Connectivity involving Thales, Alanier, Ericsson, and Qualcomm.
  • Voyager Space’s Partnership with Lintech, focusing on biopharmaceutical advancements.

All additional stories are detailed in the show notes available at space.n2k.com.

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Voyager Probes: NASA’s Enduring Legacy

Narrated by Maria Varmazas
The Voyager probes, launched in 1977, continue to voyage through deep space, defying their original five-year mission lifespan. As they approach their 50th year, NASA faces a critical decision:

• Option 1: Maintain current operations, allowing the probes to shut down entirely within a few months.
• Option 2: Continue shutting down non-essential instruments to extend their operational life by approximately a year.

NASA has opted for the latter, recently disabling Voyager 1’s cosmic ray subsystem and Voyager 2’s low-energy charged particle instrument. Despite these reductions, each probe still runs three of its original ten scientific instruments. The agency hopes to keep the Voyagers operational into the 2030s, providing invaluable data from the far reaches of our solar system.

“Barring any unforeseen issues, NASA expects that they can keep the Voyagers running into the 2030s, hopefully making it to their 50th year on mission.”
— Maria Varmazas [21:12]

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Conclusion

This episode of T-Minus Space Daily encapsulates a dynamic period in space exploration, marked by increased launch frequency, commercial dominance, and innovative collaborations. Insights from industry experts like Tom Roeder shed light on both the triumphs and challenges facing the space sector. As humanity continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible, missions like those of the Voyager probes serve as enduring testaments to our quest for knowledge and exploration.

For more detailed information and additional stories covered in this episode, visit the show notes.

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Produced by:

• Host: Maria Varmazas
• Senior Producer: Alice Carruth
• Producer: Liz Stokes
• Mixing Engineers: Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester
• Executive Producer: Jennifer Ibin
• Publisher: Peter Kilpe

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Stay updated with the latest in space intelligence by subscribing to T-Minus Space Daily through space.n2k.com.

Transcript

[Maria Varmazas]

You're listening to the N2K space network.

[Alice Carruth]

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[Maria Varmazas]

Learn more at Blackcloak IO today is March 6th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazas and this is T min.

[Tom Roeder]

T minus 20 seconds. Speed res.

[Maria Varmazas]

Firefly Aerospace to launch its Alpha rocket for a dedicated Lockheed Martin mission no earlier than March 15.4 Blacksky Reports Q4 and Full Year 2024 Financial Results 3. Red Hat and Axiom to collaborate on an on orbit data center. AST, Kahan and Le Labs collaborate to reduce US Space Force tracking times Ariane 6 lifts off from French Guiana carrying a French spy satellite to sun synchronous orbit. Our guest today is Tom Roeder, Senior Data Analyst at the Space foundation. And Tom spoke to N2K senior producer Alice Carruth about the NSF annual report on launch and shared his insights on trends in space later in the show.

[Tom Roeder]

Foreign.

[Maria Varmazas]

Before we dive into today's headlines, we wanted to note that at the time of this recording, intuitive machines IM2 mission carrying the Athena lunar lander is due to touchdown on the moon. Our whole team plans to stop what we're doing and watch the second lunar landing attempt of this week. What a dang time to be alive, y'all. We will bring you more on that story and however it goes on tomorrow's show onto today's intelligence briefing. Speaking of missions happening as we're working this morning, we watched Arianespace's Ariane 6 lift off from French Guiana. The rocket launched from Europe's spaceport in Kourou at 11:24am Eastern. It was originally planned for launch earlier this week, but that attempt was scrubbed due to further operations needed on a ground which left many on our team skeptical that the launch was going to happen at all this morning. It's actually nice to be wrong for a change. Ariane 6 carried an optical spy satellite called CSO3 for the French military. CSO3 is the third in a constellation of three military Earth observation satellites for the French military's Muses program, which stands for multinational Space Based imaging system. The CSO3 deployed into a sun synchronous orbit about 500 miles above the Earth. AST Space Mobile, Kahan Space and LeoLabs have collaborated to demonstrate a collective capacity to help the Space Force quickly detect and track satellites launched simultaneously into low Earth orbit. The companies work together to provide space situational awareness Data for the five AST Bluebird Block 1 mission satellites to help the 18th Space Defense Squadron. The goal of the collaborative effort was to show that commercial data can help close the time lag between when a satellite is released into orbit from a rocket to when the Space Force can reliably track it and put the trajectory coordinates into the military's catalog of space objects. Astkhan and Leolabs were looking to resolve the issue of the COLA gap, or collision avoidance gap. They told Breaking Defense that they were able to reduce the time it takes to identify and track objects, specifically in the case of rideshares or multiple deployments, from an average of about two months down to a week. Wow. Axiom Space and Red Hat are collaborating on Axiom Space's Data Center Unit 1, also known as AX DCU1. The unit is targeted to launch in spring of this year to the International Space Station. The data processing prototype will conduct tests on the space station and demonstrate initial orbital data center capabilities. The unit will aim to test applications in cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, data fusion and space cybersecurity. Axiom Space says the AX DCU1 launch will mark another milestone in the company's journey to bring industries to space that otherwise would would not have considered space an option. Space based intelligence company Blacksky reported Q4 financials and full year 2024 performance results. The company reported $102.1 million in revenue for 2024, which is up 8% from the prior year. Their net loss for the same time period was $57 million. The company reiterated recent successes, including the launch of their first Gen 3 satellite, which began delivering imagery that exceeded customer expectations for initial image quality, and you can read their full report by following the link in our show. Notes Firefly Aerospace held a successful hot fire of its Alpha rocket and set the date for its launch no earlier than March 15. The Alpha Flight 6 mission, called Message in a Booster, is scheduled to launch Lockheed Martin's LM400 spacecraft during a 52 minute launch window that will open at 6:25am PST. Alpha Flight 6 is the second mission that Firefly is launching for Lockheed Martin and the first of Firefly's multi launch agreement with the company that includes up to 25 missions over the next five years. The launch is planned to take off from Firefly Space's Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base. And before we jump into Alice's interview with Tom Roeder, she has some extra stories for us today.

[Liz Stokes]

Always Maria it's increasingly hard to keep the intel briefing to just five, so we always add other stories to the selected reading section of our show. Notes Today's a big day for launch and landing, as Maria's already covered. Starship is due to try again for Flight 8 today at 6:30pm in Texas. We've included a link to watch that live. We've also included the launch update for Crew 10's launch, an announcement from Satex Fire securing funding from UKSA, an update from Thales, Alanier, Ericsson and Qualcomm on space based connectivity, and a story from Voyager Space working with biopharma company Lintech.

[Maria Varmazas]

Okay, that is a lot. So where are those stories?

[Liz Stokes]

Again we include links to further reading on all the stories mentioned throughout the episode in our show notes [e-mail] just click on the show title.

[Maria Varmazas]

Hey T minus Crew. If your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership or recruit talent, T minus can help. We'd love to hear from you. Just send us an [e-mail] or send us a note through our website so we can connect about building a program to meet your goals.

[Alice Carruth]

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[Maria Varmazas]

Our guest today is Tom Roeder, Senior Data Analyst at the Space foundation, and Tom spoke to N2K senior producer Alice Carruth about what he does for the Space foundation and all about their latest Space report.

[Tom Roeder]

I'm a senior Data analyst. That means that I look at data from space, but also look at the people, the companies, the policies and all that goes into that data and try to mesh it into something understandable for our audience. The Space foundation is pretty famous for coming up with a Global economy number every Year we do the same thing for launch, the same thing for payload. We do nation by nation reviews. It's all published at our website, thespacereport.org.

[Liz Stokes]

I've always really enjoyed the reports and what insights that come out of them. Can you tell us a little bit about what you guys found in the 2024 report?

[Tom Roeder]

Just another string of broken records starting in 2020 and going forward. It's been a launch record every year. And we are down where rather than looking at weeks between launches as we did 10 years ago, we're now looking at hours. So 2024 hit that mark with a launch every 34 hours. And it's interesting what that number does not contain. That doesn't include your New Shepard space tourism launches. It doesn't include four flights of star. And the other thing that we've seen is this massive shift. A decade ago, the majority of launches were for civil, government and military purposes. Now that market is being dominated 70% plus with commercial launch, with much of that coming, of course, from SpaceX. With 259 launches last year, 132 of them were aboard a single launch vehicle type the Falcon 9.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah, I don't think that statistic would surprise anybody in the industry. If you've been paying attention, that the Falcon 9 is definitely the workhorse of the industry. But I do think there's a little bit of a cautionary tale coming up with the Falcon 9. We've become so expectant of it being this workhorse that's constantly doing great things. But last year we saw one of the boosters fail on landing. Most recently we saw a failure with the second stage and debris falling in Poland. Are you seeing any kind of trends of concern when it comes to the Falcon 9 rocket and its reusability?

[Tom Roeder]

Every rocket launch is hard and every rocket comes with degrees of concern. I don't think what we've seen with Falcon 9 is at all abnormal when you look at the rate of launch of these machines and especially the reuse that we've just. We have no experience with this level of reuse in space launch. We're learning new things. But overall the trend of failures is down over the past decade, just across the industry. And we're seeing that demand for reliability. That's what Falcon 9 has really done is when you look at companies like Rocket Lab and United Launch alliance and Mitsubishi, they have to be perfect on the first flight. And it's that drive that has really changed the industry. I think a lot of people have forgotten the early history of Falcon 9 and the fact that it was kind of like when my dad worked on a Minuteman missile here in America. It was initially called the intercounty ballistic missile because they couldn't get it off Vandenberg.

[Liz Stokes]

I like that. Yeah, I mean, it's true. We have become a little bit complacent really, haven't we, about just how much cadence we're seeing and how much growth we're seeing. We're starting to think these things when there are little failures, that there are anomalies. But actually this is just part of parcel of space. I'm also interested in hearing about the payloads now. I understand that as much as we're seeing launch cadence go up. Was there a drop in the amount of spacecraft that were taken to orbit last year?

[Tom Roeder]

We saw a small drop in the number of spacecraft taken to orbit last year, but largely that's because we didn't have a couple of these massive rideshare flights that are setting up your cubesats and throwing them up like glitter. That just didn't happen as often in 2024. I expect both the launch number and the payload number to accelerate in 2025. You know, just, just here we got notice that down in Brisbane, Australia, Gilmour Space is preparing to launch eris, making it Australia's first native launch vehicle. And we're going to see a lot of that. When you look at rocket factory Augsburg going to launch RFA1 just several examples across the industry. As many as two dozen new rockets could hit orbit in 2025. And several of these, especially from China, are designed as direct competitors to Falcon 9.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah, it's an exciting time really, but also very interesting to see how this changes where people launch from as well. So you mentioned Australia, you mentioned rfa, which is going to be launching hopefully from Scotland. What else are you thinking there's going to be coming up in this next year?

[Tom Roeder]

One of the ones that I'm really excited to see, it's the geek in me is seeing Sierra Space's reusable spacecraft go up and come back from the International Space Station. What really interests me about that is here in America especially, we have a whole lot of spaceports that are horizontal reentry. And so we could see the potential as we grow space commerce of seeing something like Dream Chaser coming to an airport near you to deliver products built in space. That's gonna be really interesting.

[Liz Stokes]

We're obviously in a new year now in 2025. We've seen a new administration come in. There's a little Bit of a cautionary tale when it comes to NASA at the moment. When it comes to workforce, Blue Origin have just seen a reduction in workforce as well. Do you think that's a trend we're gonna be continuing to see this year?

[Tom Roeder]

You know, time will tell on policy. We really haven't seen what policy is going to look like. We've heard a lot policy, but we haven't seen anything. Hard and fast, we'll get to that point at some point. But Congress has to weigh in on these changes as well. And so we still haven't seen, for instance, a fiscal year 2025 budget for the United States government. If and when we get that, then we'll have an idea of what last year was supposed to look like, which will give us a better idea going forward. In terms of industrial changes like we saw at Blue Origin, that's not uncommon. When you look at companies that transition from development to manufacturing, you need a different kind of workforce. When you're inventing and doing new things, that's very specialized application. And what I noticed was after Blue Origin announced that they were going to trim their workforce, I looked at my feed on LinkedIn and the number of recruiters on there who were saying please come to us was truly impressive. Overall, when we look at job openings on the website spacetalent.org since 2022, we're in a growing trend. About this time in 2022, there were about 15,000 job openings on that website for space specific workers. Now there are about 19,500 on that website. And that actually runs inverse to wider industrial trends in America, where we have seen a lower demand signal for some manufacturing workers and for some engineers.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah, and hopefully we're going to start to see more of a trend when it comes to investment in space as well. As you mentioned, we're very much in this era of commercial space and that commercial space has to have funding. And I've seen some rumors online about VCs kind of getting a little bit more wary. What are you seeing when it comes to investment in space? Not just here in the US but globally as well.

[Tom Roeder]

Globally, we are seeing a lot of these startups beginning to get enveloped by larger companies. In the US you'd say Raytheon. Overseas, you could say Airbus or bae. But we are seeing these startups and that mature to the point where they are of value to these larger firms. And I think we're going to see more of that merger and acquisition activity. It was up through the last two quarters of 2024, and I don't expect that to change. We're also hearing magical words again that we haven't heard since 2021. Like SPAC is back. Possibly. So, you know, let's see. With policy changes we're seeing around the globe, there is a real encouragement toward commercial space. And we are seeing new countries enter that marketplace and new customers enter that marketplace. And if you watch the American super bowl, one of the biggest ads was the fact that you can now send texts over Starlink. So unlike commercial space, which is kind of a fuzzy commodity just a decade ago, we now have a business model that is making money and has millions of subscribers. So this is that inflection point that I think we've all seen coming but we never expected to happen so quickly.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah, I feel like that whole old saying of every company is going to eventually be a space company is starting to come to fruition. Are you seeing some trends about the non traditional space market looking to space more to be able to enhance their business opportunities?

[Tom Roeder]

I'm hearing a lot from the data sector and this can be anything from Earth observation to companies that just need a really fast secure pipeline to transmit their data internally. But space is a great place, of course, for Earth observation. We're seeing companies like Tomorrow IO coming with very specific weather solutions that are useful to big agriculture and everything. Actually, some of their customers include major retail firms so they can determine staffing based on weather, which is that's really incredible stuff we're seeing from space. But in terms of the data pipeline that grows and grows and grows, it's calculated that you can create a global laser network that's the equivalent of fiber optic with just 600 satellites in mid earth orbit. When you look at that cost comparison to putting fiber optic cable just around the globe, it's a no brainer. And so I think you were going to see a major telecom transition. And as telecom goes, so do data centers. So do a lot of these things. And so that's the real big commercial trend I think we're going to see is there's industry for especially low Earth orbit where you can see things like data centers winding up there because it's cold. And solar energy is much more efficient up there. And it's, you know, while it ain't free, it's a lot cheaper than paying your utility bill. Foreign.

[Maria Varmazas]

We'll be right back.

[Alice Carruth]

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[Maria Varmazas]

Welcome back. The twin Voyager probes launched in 1977 and have far, far exceeded expectations of how long they'd be on mission. 47 years is a long time to be doing science in deep space, especially when your mission was technically only supposed to last for five years. But those two, they keep on trucking. But nothing lasts forever, my friends. Not even the stars. And our Voyagers are getting up in years, and they're running low on power. So NASA is making some hard calls on how to best proceed with the Voyagers. Either keep them going with the power that they're running on now and run out of juice entirely in just a few more months, or do as they have been doing lately and continue shutting down the onboard instrumentation to allow the Voyagers to keep on going just a little While longer. Longer. NASA's choosing the latter, of course, saying that the latest shutdown of Voyager 1's cosmic ray subsystem experiment and Voyager 2's low energy charged particle instrument will give each probe at least another year of power. With these instruments shutting down, each Voyager will only have three of its original 10 scientific instruments on board still running. Barring any unforeseen issues, NASA expects that they can keep the Voyagers running into the2030s, hopefully making it to their 50th year on mission. Wouldn't that be amazing? So, friends, I think we all know and understand that one day we'll be getting some very sad news indeed about these intrepid explorers. But at least today, it is not that day. That's it for T minus for March 6, 2025, brought to you by N2K CyberWire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show [e-mail] 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. N2K Senior Producer is Alice Carrus Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Peter Kilpe is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Alice Carruth]

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