← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
Capital Flows and the Cloud in Orbit.
00:30:27
Stoke Space raised a total of $860M in its Series D. Starcloud to launch AWS Outposts. Eutelsat signed for €1bn financing for new OneWeb satellites. And more.
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- [00:02]
Stacey Naughton
You're listening to the Cyberwire Network, powered by N2K.
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Podcast Announcer
Identity is a top attack vector. In our interview with Kavitha Mariapan from Rubrik, she breaks down why 90% of security leaders believe that identity based attacks are their biggest threat. Throughout this conversation we explore why recovery times are getting longer, not shorter, and what resiliency will look like in this AI driven world. If you're struggling to get a handle on identity risk, this is something you should tune into. Check out the full interview@thecyberwire.com Rubrik. Maybe that's an urgent message from your CEO, or maybe it's a deepfake trying to target your business. Doppel is the AI native social engineering defense platform fighting back against impersonation and manipulation. As attackers use AI to make their tactics more sophisticated, Doppel uses it to fight back from automatically dismantling cross channel attacks to building team resilience and more Doppel outpacing what's next in social engineering? Learn more@doppl.com that'S-O-P p e l.com.
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Maria Varmazes
Today is February 11th, 2026. I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T minus.
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John Ferenczy
T minus 20 seconds to Los.
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Stacey Naughton
My voice is coming from a Satellite.
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Maria Varmazes
5 Firefly Aero Alpha Flight 7 will be conducted no earlier than February 18th from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. China has conducted a series of flight tests for its next generation crewed lunar exploration systems. Eutelsat has signed for 1 billion euros Export Credit Agency financing for the procurement of satellites for its OneWeb constellation. StarCloud has revealed plans to launch Amazon Web Services aws outposts to space one. Stokespace has announced an extension of its previous series definancing, bringing the total amount raised in the round to $860 million. Our guests today are Stacy Naughton and John Ferenczy from Purdue University. I caught up with Stacey and John during Commercial Space Week to find out more about the new courses available at the university and about their plans for the Space Policy, Science and Technology Symposium at Purdue coming up in March. Find out more after today's headlines. And hey T minus crew. Today we are celebrating our 700th daily episode. We did not think we would make it this far and to be honest, things are going to be changing in the coming weeks with this show. But we wanted to take a moment first and foremost to say thank you for sticking with us over the last three years. And there's more to come, but for now let's dive in to today's Intelligence briefing We're kicking off today's episode with an update from Stoke Space. We are stoked to announce that the rocket company that is developing fully and rapidly reusable medium lift launch vehicles announced an extension of its previous series definancing, bringing the total amount raised in the round to $860 million. The round was initially announced in October 2025 at $510 million. That funding focused on completing activation of Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, expanding production capacity for the Nova launch vehicle. Stokes says it will use the additional capital to accelerate future elements of its product roadmap. The terms of the round were not disclosed, but with the extension, Stoke has now raised, believe it or not, an impressive $1.34 billion to date, space data center startup Starcloud has revealed plans to launch Amazon Web Services AWS outposts to space. It's part of its long term goal of an 88,000 satellite constellation. StarCloud's co founder and CEO Philip Johnston shared the announcement of the partnership with AWS in a social media post writing this I'm excited to share that Starcloud will be the first to launch the Amazon Web Services outpost hardware to space on our second satellite, launching in October of this year. Further enabling high performance computing in space and AWS outposts, if you don't know, are rack and server level offerings from AWS enabling customers to bring AWS capabilities to their own data center or edge location. Details of the AWS outpost's deployment on StarCloud have yet to be provided. Eutelsat has secured financing for its latest satellite order. The satellite giant has signed for $1 billion Export Credit Agency financing for the procurement of satellites for its OneWeb constellation. The financing will be provided by a pool of commercial banks, which will benefit from a French state guarantee obtained through its export credit agency BPI France Assurance Export. The financing backs the recently announced contract with Airbus Defense and space for 340 LEO satellites on top of the 100 already ordered to be manufactured at Airbus Toulouse facility. China has conducted a series of flight tests for its next generation crewed lunar exploration systems. It's the systems that the nation plans to use for landing astronauts on the moon before 2030. The test missions were carried out at the Wenchong space launch site in South China's Hainan Province. They included a low altitude demonstration of the long March 10 rocket and a high speed abort test of the Mengzhou crewed spacecraft under maximum aerodynamic pressure. According to the ChinaManned Space Engineering Office. Both systems performed as designed and Firefly Aerospace has announced that its next test flight will be conducted no earlier than February 18th from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The scheduled Alpha Flight 7 will be the last flown in the rocket's current configuration and serves as a test flight with the primary goal to achieve nominal first and second stage performance. Flight 7 will test and validate key systems ahead of Firefly's Block 2 configuration upgrade on Flight 8 that is designed to enhance reliability and manufacturability across the vehicle. The Block 2 configuration includes a seven foot increase to Alpha's length, consolidated batteries and avionics built in house, an enhanced thermal protection system and stronger carbon composite structures built with automated machinery. The subsystems to be tested on Flight 7 include the in house avionics and thermal improvements. They will allow Firefly to gain flight heritage and validate lessons learned ahead of the full configuration upgrade. And that wraps up today's top five stories. Stay with us for more on what Purdue has planned for their Space Policy, Science and Technology Symposium coming up in March and a reminder that you can find links to further reading on all the stories mentioned throughout this episode in the selected reading section of our show. Notes by the way, T Minus listeners, it is our 700th episode and it feels like the right time for us to mention that T minus will be changing from the end of next week. We're no longer going to be providing the daily headlines after next Friday, so here is our call to action for you. What would you want to hear from the new T Minus show? Well, we want to hear your thoughts. Send us an email. Spacen2k.com is our email address. We want you to help us shape the new show in the coming weeks, so don't hesitate. Please reach out.
- [09:04]
Stacey Naughton
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- [09:35]
Maria Varmazes
Our guests today are Stacey Knotton and John Ferency from Purdue University. I caught up with Stacy and John during Commercial Space Week to find out more about the new courses that are available at the university and about their plans for the Space Policy, Science and Technology Symposium and at Purdue coming up in March.
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John Ferenczy
My name is John Ferencine. I lead Economic development for the Purdue Research Foundation. And our goal and mission is to advance the mission of Purdue University.
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Stacey Naughton
I'm Stacey Kanan, the director of the Purdue Policy Research Institute. And on behalf of our whole team here, thank you so much for having us on today. We're delighted to talk with you about what's happening at Purdue.
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Maria Varmazes
Let's get into that, and let's do that today. So we are at spacecom, and y' all are here. To me, it makes a whole ton of sense. Purdue's name is so well spoken of, so well known in the space industry. But I'm curious, from your perspective, why are you here?
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Stacey Naughton
Well, we are here to touch base with our many, many alum who are here. We are known as the cradle of astronauts. We are now up to 30 astronauts. In fact, I heard a statistic that I think maybe it's about one third of US Space flights have had a Purdue grad on does not surprise me at all.
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John Ferenczy
Y. Yeah.
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Stacey Naughton
I mean, I find it remarkable, but knowing our students, I also, I believe it 100%. Our student body is incredible. And so we're here to celebrate that legacy. We're here to celebrate not only the legacy, but what we have coming up in the future. And one of those very exciting things related to space is that we have a virgin flight that will be going up within the next year. That is an all Purdue crew.
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Maria Varmazes
Wow.
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Stacey Naughton
Led by Professor Stephen Colicutt, who's a professor in our College of Engineering at Purdue. So a lot of good things. And in addition, as we'll talk about today, we're here to interact with colleagues in the space domain who share our love of research, of economic development in the domain, and then in training the next generation of space scientists, engineers, and professionals.
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Maria Varmazes
That's wonderful. Is there anything you want to add to that, John?
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John Ferenczy
We have a wide breadth of expertise in the space vertical, so we're looking to partner with all those companies that are trying to innovate and advance their business in their industries. Because what Purdue University really stands for is national security and national defense. Northern University has the focus on that as much as we do.
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Maria Varmazes
Yeah.
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John Ferenczy
So we work with companies all across the spectrum, nationally and internationally, to advance that security of. Of our war fighter and of our nations.
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Podcast Announcer
Yeah.
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John Ferenczy
So all the companies that have any innovative products, we would love to incorporate them into what we do to add value to their business. We've got over 58,000 students. 35,000 are STEM students. So across the board, we have over 500 research centers on campus. Some of those are one faculty and one research grad student. But some of them, like Zucor, has over 400 postdocs and researchers working for them. So we're able to apply our expertise to many, many companies. So it's just exciting for us to be able to add value to startups or existing Bellworths of companies.
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Maria Varmazes
Absolutely. Yeah. Y' all are a research powerhouse. I'd love to hear a little bit about your thoughts on, you know, the economic development, like regional economic development, but also workforce development. Again, you both touched on it a little bit, but sounds like there's some specific goals you're trying to achieve here.
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John Ferenczy
So, yeah, I can easily speak about the economic development. So what we have done in the state of Indiana is create a hard tech corridor from West Lafayette, Indiana, down to Indianapolis and then further south to Crane, which is the nswc, which is the Naval Surface Warfare center in Crane, Indiana. We actually have a facility there, and I manage that facility so that we can be a strong collaborator between the Navy and the University and then all the corporate partners that are involved in. In Purdue and in Crane. So with that hard tech corridor, we are supporting the warfighter, all warfighters. But because of the Navy aspect, we really focus on the naval warfighter and the army because our president is a colonel in the Army National Guard. So we have a real strong tie to hard tech.
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Maria Varmazes
Yeah.
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John Ferenczy
And now. And that's with missiles and other defense systems. So what we're now is really just lifting that ceiling and going into space. So we are working on systems for space hard tech and then advancing that from an innovative perspective. Excellent.
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Maria Varmazes
Anything you want to add?
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Stacey Naughton
You know, one of the things we are so proud of is that in 2021, I believe it was, John, our then president, Mitch Daniels, entered into one of the first MOUs with US Space Force.
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John Ferenczy
Oh, wow.
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Stacey Naughton
Yeah. And the partnership. And so, you know, we are dedicated Right. To. To serving Guardians and to collaborating with guardians all along the way. In today's news, this is not directly related to Guardians, but I think speaks to what John was talking about, about in. In space manufacturing and. And this is something we'll be covering at our upcoming symposium.
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Maria Varmazes
Yeah.
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Stacey Naughton
But it says Purdue is accepted. Expanding the scientific footprint of 2027's all BoilerMaker suborbital flight mission with the addition of onboard autonomous experiments in quantum technology and in space chip manufacturing. And that's coming out of three.
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Maria Varmazes
And.
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Stacey Naughton
Wow. Yeah, I mean, it is extraordinary. Our colleague, AJ Malsha is leading that effort along with many others and importantly students. So at Purdue, you will find, you know, if you're an undergraduate, a graduate student working in those spaces, you're integrated into all of this fantastic research and innovation.
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John Ferenczy
Yeah. And we have the world's largest academic propulsion laboratory, and we have the world's largest academic clean room at Class 1, which is unheard of in university space. So from the chip manufacturing, from design through fabrication, through usage, we can offer that to undergrads. And then also from the propulsion perspective, again, that's where we have over 400 researchers and those students are the cream of the crop and get jobs with every major prime that's involved in anything from engine manufacturing.
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Maria Varmazes
That's remarkable. And I wanted to also ask about. So we were talking a bit about the hard manufacturing, the corridor. Right. But also more broadly about the space industry, how you all interface with the space industry, which again, feels like one of those extremely obvious things because, like, you guys are everywhere. But tell me about that. Seriously. That would be great.
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John Ferenczy
We have the first man on the moon and the most recent man on the moon, and then there are some females in the astronaut program because I want the first man and the first woman on the moon to be from Purdue.
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Maria Varmazes
There you go.
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John Ferenczy
So again, with all the companies with SpaceX and all those companies are going in there, we're working on them on research projects because of all the research centers we have. So we're advancing that innovation and a lot of it besides. We're very much experts in propulsion and systems, but it's about the habitat. So we're creating some research centers where we're going to simulate the habitat of lunar and other space systems so that people learn how to live and educate and work while in space. So that's where the innovation is coming with the, you know, more of a human factors perspective. So our industrial engineering, our school of industrial engineering has a big human factors division. They're involved in the space habitat. That makes a lot of sense as well.
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Maria Varmazes
Yeah.
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John Ferenczy
Because, you know, when we're going there, unlike when you're on a, you know, in the military, you're on a ship for six months or a year, they're going to expect these people that, you know, families are going to be going and they're going to have to be able to live, work and play in space. Yeah. So we want to be ready for that as well.
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Maria Varmazes
You mentioned a symposium of some kind, an upcoming symposium. Is that something you want to talk about?
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Stacey Naughton
The symposium, actually really, I think, celebrates what we've all been talking about here today. And that is kind of the, the integration the needed integration of private sector, government, academia, venture capitalists. Right. In moving forward what should be us and is us space superiority. So the symposium is the brainchild of those of us at Purdue along with Brigadier General Kristen Panzenhagen of Space Force, who is a Purdue alumnus and a steering committee that consists of other Purdue alum from Lockheed Martin and other colleagues on campus. And what we aim to do is each year take a theme that is a priority issue for Space Force. So this year the theme is around space debris, Mitigating national security risks of space debris. And so you'll see if you go to, if you, if you google the Space Policy, Science and Technology symposium at Purdue, you will see the all star lineup of speakers. But importantly, this symposium is output driven, meaning that we produce from very rich conversations using an innovation science methodology produced by Joe Sinfield, a professor of engineering at Purdue. These rich conversations yield policy briefs and issue briefs that go to Brent Blevin's team on the Science, Space and Technology committee.
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Podcast Announcer
Wow.
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Stacey Naughton
So we are certainly interested in rich conversations, but at present, Purdue, we are output driven. Right. And we are very much interested in capturing. Right. Those that, that, that information that can then be translated potentially into informing policy conversations. So I will say something else about the symposium March 23rd through 25th on the West Lafayette campus. It is a wonderful time to be in West Lafayette and a wonderful time for anyone who would like to come to not only see the things that John and I have talked about today, but to interact with our students. The students are integral to everything that happens at that symposium. I'll give you an example. Last year we had colleagues from RAND there. One of the students landed an internship at rand.
- [20:15]
John Ferenczy
There you go.
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Maria Varmazes
That's the way to do it.
- [20:16]
Stacey Naughton
Really wonderful opportunity and open to everyone.
- [20:19]
Maria Varmazes
That's wonderful.
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John Ferenczy
Did you speak to who the speakers are this year from the companies?
- [20:23]
Stacey Naughton
I'd be happy to. So we've got again colleagues from Lockheed Martin, from Blue Origin, from Astroscale, us from Auburn University. Derek Tourneer is coming back from his time at STA to spend some time with us at Purdue. He's now of course with Auburn. We hopefully if all things are approved, we'll have Brigadier General Panzenhagen back along with Major General Chris Povak, the top, well, the research scientist lead for US Space Force, Stacy Williams will be with us partnering with afrl. I mean really just a dynamic, dynamic group and an all of university effort.
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Maria Varmazes
That sounds like a can't miss. Honestly that is a powerhouse lineup of speakers there. So that's Pretty cool.
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John Ferenczy
And those are all our partners at.
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Maria Varmazes
The university and we work with all.
- [21:17]
John Ferenczy
Those companies and agencies. And then there's one other thing I want to talk about. The Kroc Institute of Tech Diplomacy at Purdue. It's a Washington D.C. based think tank and what their mission is that technology advances freedom. So we work with like minded countries around the world to make sure there's diplomatic efforts in place so that technology advances freedom. Excellent. And that is going to go again. We're raising that ceiling on our tech corridor to include space, but it's an absolutely phenomenal organization.
- [21:52]
Maria Varmazes
Wonderful.
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John Ferenczy
Headquartered out of D.C. and working with like minded countries around the world to advance freedom through technology.
- [21:59]
Maria Varmazes
Wonderful. Is there anything about the educational side of things that you want that we wanted to drive home? Yes.
- [22:03]
Stacey Naughton
At Purdue, we believe very strongly that education happens at any point in life.
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Podcast Announcer
Yes.
- [22:10]
Stacey Naughton
And so while some people may prefer to learn in person on our residential campus where we can offer highly ranked programs in engineering of all sorts, including aeroastro and industrial engineering, et cetera, as well as in so many of the science domains, planetary science, as well as many others, we also believe very strongly that learners are at every, every age.
- [22:39]
Maria Varmazes
Right.
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Stacey Naughton
And that oftentimes learning, really good learning happens online. And so at Purdue, we have a comprehensive portfolio that seeks to meet students where they are.
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Maria Varmazes
Right.
- [22:53]
Stacey Naughton
So we will have students literally from all around the world at different phases of their careers engaged in our undergraduate master's programs. Everything from AI. Right. To different kinds of STEM areas that we at Purdue are known for and expert in. And so wherever. And this very, very much includes our members of the military. So whether you're a guardian or someone in the Air Force or someone in the Navy or somewhere in someone in the Army. Right. The Coast Guard, wherever you happen to be in the world, we at Purdue would love to journey with you as you continue your education. In addition to the residential and online programs that I mentioned, we also have a fully online doctorate in technology and engineering. And so absolutely, we are committed to. To meeting students where they are.
- [23:57]
Maria Varmazes
That's fantastic that you all offer that. And as I said, I will probably be looking into that later when I get home. So that's really fantastic. So I'm excited to hear about that. Well, I want to be sensitive to time, but I want to also make sure that you both get the last words. Any final thoughts that you want to leave people with? By all means, yeah.
- [24:14]
John Ferenczy
When you think Purdue, think innovation. And when you think national security and national defense, think Purdue.
- [24:21]
Stacey Naughton
Absolutely. Cutting edge research. Right. That again spans the university ecosystem, engineering and science. Absolutely. But also policy, ethics, political science and beyond.
- [24:47]
Maria Varmazes
We will be right back.
- [24:53]
Podcast Announcer
The world moves fast. Your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365Copilot welcome back.
- [25:26]
Maria Varmazes
And finally today, February 11th marks the UNESCO International Day of Women and Girls in Science. This year's theme is From Vision to Impact. Redefining STEM by Closing the Gender Gap and the Pipeline. Conversation is important, and it's always important to help get more girls interested in science. That is for sure. But I'm glad to see some of that conversation shifting attention to what happens after those girls arrive in stem. Certainly across the space industry, women are launching rockets, leading missions, building spacecraft, running labs and shaping policy. But we've talked about it a lot on this show over the years, and the data backs it up consistently. Recruitment is truly only half the battle, and efforts cannot stop with recruitment. Retention is where the real messy work begins. A lot of times this is where there might be a call to action for more mentorship of women in the sciences, but I would like to maybe put that idea to pasture. We have a plethora of mentors very happy to give career advice to women. Advice is free, after all, and boy, do people have a lot of it. But you can be the most mentored woman in an organization and still get nowhere. What women need is not more mentorship, but championship. Champions advocate for others. They put names forward for flight assignments, principal investigator slots, board seats, and executive roles. They speak up in rooms where the decisions are made. Champions attach their reputations to someone else's potential, and that is how we truly move the needle here. You cannot move upward in your career on individual excellence alone. To go beyond good intention to real impact in not just getting, but keeping women in stem, we need champions out front for the cause, not just a lot of advisors cheering on in the sidelines. So space folks, as we look towards Artemis 2 and beyond commercial stations and a more crowded and competitive space ecosystem, we gotta remember that closing the gender gap is not just a measure of fairness or niceness, it is a competitive advantage. Building the future of space needs a lot more than just vision. We need people making sure that the men and the women already doing the excellent hard work. Have someone actively championing training them to the next level. And that's T minus Brought to you by N2K CyberWire we'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like this show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space2k.com we are proud that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies, N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn and stay informed. As the nexus for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, the technology and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how@n2k.com N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Peter Kielpe is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thank you for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
- [29:18]
John Ferenczy
T minus.
- [29:34]
Podcast Announcer
If you only attend one cybersecurity conference this year, make it RSAC 2026. It's happening March 23rd through the 26th in San Francisco, bringing together the global security community for four days of expert insights, hands on learning and real innovation. I'll say this plainly, I never miss this conference. The ideas and conversations stay with me all year. Join thousands of practitioners and leaders tackling today's toughest challenges and shaping what comes next. Register today@rsaconference.com cyberwire26 I'll see you in San Francisco.