← T-Minus Space Daily
T-Minus Space Daily
Earth Day, from space.
00:27:23
ISRO completes a second satellite docking demonstration. SpaceX launches the Bandwagon 3 mission. NASA shares asteroid images from Lucy. And more.
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- [00:00]
Alice Carruth
Foreign.
- [00:02]
Elliot Peltzman
You're listening to the N2K space network. What's the common denominator in security incidents? Escalations and lateral movement. When a privileged account is compromised, attackers can seize control of critical assets with bad directory hygiene and years of technical debt. Identity attack paths are easy targets for threat actors to exploit, but hard for defenders to detect. This poses risk in active directory, Entra ID and hybrid configurations. Identity leaders are reducing such risks with attack path management. You can learn how Attack path Management is connecting identity and security teams while reducing risk with Bloodhound Enterprise powered by SpectreOps. Head to SpectreOps IO today to learn more. SpectreOps see your attack paths the way adversaries do.
- [01:04]
Maria Valmarzes
Foreign.
- [01:10]
Alice Carruth
Today is April 22, 2025. I'm Alice Carruth and this is T minus.
- [01:19]
Dan Barstow
T minus 20 seconds to Los.
- [01:22]
Alice Carruth
T drift 5 NASA's Lucy shares close up images of asteroid Donald Johansson, ispace and EntX awarded a grant from the Australian Government for a Lunar Night survival technology demonstration. SpaceX launches the Bandwagon 3 mission carrying payloads for South Korea tomorrow. Companies and Atmos Space Cargo India to partner with NASA and ESA on experiments for the Axiom 4 mission. ISRA has completed a second satellite docking demonstration as part of the Spadex Miss and today is Earth Day. Maria Valmarzes will be speaking to dan Barstow from earthmusictheatre.org about the Earth Harmony Sonata Special they've released today. It features images captured by Butch M. Sunny on their recent mission. Dan will be sharing more about those videos later in the show, so stick around for that chat. Happy Tuesday everyone. Let's dive into today's intelligence briefing. We're kicking off with an update from India on their spadex mission. Despite the difficult start, the India Space Research Organization, known as isro, has now managed to successfully dock two satellites for a second time during the mission. The Space Docking Experiment satellite's chase and target completed the second docking on Sunday. The mission also included a power transfer demonstration between the two spacecraft. The experiment saw a heater element operating in one of the satellites through power from the other. ISRO shared that the duration of the power transfer was approximately four minutes and the performance of the satel. As expected, the docking was completed with full autonomy from an inter satellite distance of 15 meters till docking. That's five times the distance that was achieved in the first docking mission. The satellites were successfully docked for the first time on January 16 after a series of delays and undocked on March 13. ISRO also shared that further experiments are planned in the next two weeks and staying in India. Scientists are collaborating with NASA and the European Space Agency on seven experiments that are scheduled to head to Space station. The experiments will be part of the Axiom 4 mission, which is scheduled to launch no earlier than May this year. On board the mission will be India's first astronaut to visit the orbiting lab. The AX4 research complement includes around 60 scientific studies and activities representing 31 countries including India, the US, Poland, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Nigeria, UAE and nations across Europe. Axiom says this will be the most research and science related activities conducted on an Axiom space mission aboard the ISS to date. SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket last night from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for the Bandwagon 3 rideshare mission. The workhorse spacecraft carried payloads for South Korea's Agency for defense development, the Tomorrow S7 satellite from Tomorrow Companies Inc. And the Phoenix One re entry capsule developed by Atmos Space Car. Bandwagon 3 was the third in a series of dedicated rideshare missions to mid inclination orbits. A fourth mission is expected before the end of the year. ISPACE is partnering with an Australian nuclear engineering and technology company to develop tech to survive the lunar night. ISPACE and ENTX have reached an agreement to transport and test a radioactive heating unit, or rhu, on the lunar surface as part of a future ISPACE mission. The demonstration will be funded in part by a 200,000 Australian dollar grant from the Space Cooperation and Innovation Fund supported by the State of South Australia. The companies have signed an agreement to develop a shared understanding for a technology demonstration of EntX's RHU on the moon's surface and its possible integration to a future lunar lander. And there's nothing quite like an audio program talking about a visual story, but indulge me, please, if you will. NASA's Lucy spacecraft has released stunning imagery captured of the asteroid Donald Johansson On April 20, Lucy conducted a close flyby of the asteroid, capturing detailed pictures of the elongated, lumpy space rock located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid measures approximately five miles in length and two miles in width. Its unusual shape prevented the spacecraft from capturing it entirely in initial images. It's named after paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, who discovered the famous Lucy fossil. This encounter served as a preparatory mission for Lucy's future flybys of Trojan asteroids near Jupiter, scheduled through 2033. The data collected during this flyby will aid scientists in understanding the asteroid's formation and contribute to insights into the early solar system. Go and check out the images by following the link in our Show Notes. And speaking of our Show Notes, senior producer Elliot Peltzman has more on the stories that didn't make today's Top five.
- [07:20]
Elliot Peltzman
Elliot yes, we have three additional links in the Show Notes today that cover financial results from Lockheed Martin and Iridium and an op ed from Chad Anderson that states the honeymoon is over for space investors. Would you agree?
- [07:36]
Alice Carruth
Alice I think we're in an economic gray area right now, but honestly, there are still some great startups out there that are looking for investors. And for those investors, it's always a good time to get involved in the space industry. But I'm not a VC or an economist, just a certified space nerds, so don't take my word for it. Anyway, Elliot, can you remind us where those links are again please?
- [07:57]
Elliot Peltzman
Yes, Links can always be found in the Selected Reading section of our Show Notes and on our website space.n2k.com just click on this episode title.
- [08:08]
Alice Carruth
Thanks Elliot Hey T Miners Crew. If you're just joining us, be sure to follow T Miners Space Daily in your favorite podcast app. And also do us a favor, share the intel with your friends and co workers. A growing audience is the most important thing for us and we'd love your help as part of the T Minus crew. If you find T minus useful, please share so other professionals like you can find the show. Thanks. It really does mean a lot to us.
- [08:47]
Elliot Peltzman
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- [09:25]
Alice Carruth
Today is Earth Day and our friends at earthmusictheater.org have released a beautiful video which we've included in our show, Notes celebrating our home planet, all captured by NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Dan Barstow spoke to Maria Valmazes about the Earth Harmony Sonata and the videos he produces.
- [09:47]
Dan Barstow
I used to be the Senior Education Manager for the International Space Station, but now I volunteer with the astronauts, the members of the association of Space Explorers. I manage their archive of photos and movies taken of Earth taken by the astronauts. It's gorgeous. It's just, you know, hundreds of hours of movies that nobody's ever seen before. So we've decided to use music to help reveal the Beauty of Earth. We now have some 35 musicians, from jazz to organ to choral music, all of whom are donating their music. And we use these movies and then release one new movie every week. This is all part of a project called Earth Music Theater. We have a website, earthmusictheater.org yeah, and.
- [10:38]
Maria Valmarzes
I just want to say, when your emails arrive Friday, Alice and I both say it's the highlight of our Friday when that lands in our inbox. So thank you.
- [10:45]
Dan Barstow
Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. So. And that's the idea of pacing them one at a time so you get a chance to focus on that one. Well, Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore, as listeners may know, recently had an extended stay on the space station. They were in their happy place. It meant that they had time to look out the window and enjoy our glorious home planet. So here they are, orbiting every 92 minutes. It's daytime, nighttime. They picked some of their favorite views, and we selected one. Pass. Butch did a movie going from Equatorial Africa over the Sahara, then Gaza and the Middle east, and then on up to Turkey and Armenia. It's a beautiful, beautiful path, the Sahara, though, interweaving oranges and reds. It's just magical.
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Maria Valmarzes
I'm launching the link right now so I can look at it while you're describing it to me.
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Dan Barstow
Well, so I'll understand if you're distracted. I'll be very pleased.
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Maria Valmarzes
I'm going, what?
- [11:49]
Elliot Peltzman
Yeah, please, go ahead.
- [11:51]
Dan Barstow
Meanwhile, Sunny, for her part, preferred to take photos. Not the movies, but the photos. Just. Oh, look at that click. She took some 10,000 photos, and I had the great fortune of reviewing every one of them. Then I tried to select 60 favorites. Now, who knows? But they just appealed to me just because they're so insightful or something. So we put those together with a Bach trio Sonata for Organ. Now, Bach, you know, we do jazz, we do all kinds, but Bach is a master of harmonies, and Earth is harmonies. So you listen to the music and you see the land, the mountains, the sand, the water, the rivers all interweaving. And you sort of. Bach's harmonies reveal Earth's harmonies. So now we're releasing this special movie for Earth Day.
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Maria Valmarzes
I love Bach. Bach's sonatas especially. The imagery is, of course, it's beautiful, but I love the idea of this. What you just said about Earth is harmony. Bach is harmony. And also this for Earth Day. What a beautiful initiative. And, oh, my God, I'm just flabbergasted looking at this. This is so gorgeous. Oh, my gosh, does it ever get.
- [13:17]
Dan Barstow
No, it doesn't. And I tell you, we have some 35 musicians that we have agreements with. They're all donating their music. They keep on getting more. We do live performances as well. The views of Earth, you know, you're saying it's gorgeous. That's why we do this. Earth is at risk. You know, there's climate change, there are all kinds of issues, fires and so on. We are not giving this message of, you know, how horrible you've treated Earth. Rather, we're saying, love Earth. Feel in your heart this beauty for Earth. Just watch and enjoy. Listen to the music and feel the harmonies and fill yourself with the glory of Earth and the joy of music. That's the emotion that we're trying to convey to our global audience.
- [14:09]
Maria Valmarzes
I think it does a spectacular job of that. And as the images are cycling through, I just saw a beautiful image of the moon, of course, little bits and angles of the ISS through there as well, which is just a wonderful reminder of the vantage point that this is all coming from. I see Canadarm at one point.
- [14:25]
Dan Barstow
It's great to see.
- [14:27]
Maria Valmarzes
I think it's so important that, you know, we take a moment, especially on Earth Day of all days, to appreciate our planet and also acknowledge that, that we have to do more to do right by our home.
- [14:38]
Dan Barstow
You learn to sort of appreciate Earth from this, this vantage of their. It's actually, you know, it's 250 miles above the Earth, which, which is not that far. It's not like the way out at the Moon. And so you, you have this intimacy with Earth and yet a scale that reveals new things.
- [14:56]
Maria Valmarzes
Can you tell me a little bit more about maybe how Butch and Sunny, they, they, they acquired their images in a little bit of a different way. Can you tell me about that?
- [15:05]
Dan Barstow
They use handheld cameras, Nikon Z9 cameras. They're superb. I mean, this is like 8K resolution and very good gradations of colors and so on. They have several of them up there. They have multiple lenses. Butch likes to take movies. Now, the way he does that is by using this. Not a movie camera, it's this, it's an SLR digital camera. He fix, mounts it to the window. First he figures out the orbital path. He says, you know, Tomorrow afternoon at 3pm we're going to fly over Greece and I want to get that. So he sets his watch and plans to make sure he's not doing anything else. Then he mounts the camera in the window and has it take a picture once every second. It's an automated process. Then it does Like a half hour pass. Now, just to get a technical. For a moment, that one frame per second, if you were to watch it at that speed, it'd be stop motion. You'd see something for a second and then you'd wait and then the next picture. Well, we use software that invents 29 pictures in between those two to give 30 frames per second. So in a sense, it's like artificial intelligence figuring this out. But the flight is so smooth that that gradate, that shifting, and it enables us actually to adjust the speed of the movie to be the real speed of the ISS or to align it with the music. So, for example, you know, Brian Hoffman, who's the organist, plays this beautiful. It's got. There are three movements here. There's one that's allegro, that's very lively, joyous piece. And then there's one that is a largo, sort of a slower piece, and then another allegro. So we can adjust the speed of the movie to align with the speed, the tempo of the music. Now, Sonny, for her part, does just handheld and just looking and just pointing wherever it is, looking behind her, in front of her, off to the horizon, straight down, and she just takes individual pictures. They'll typically take maybe 10 to 20 pictures of a particular region as they fly over. And then they wade into another. Oh, look at that. And they click a bunch. I find that her pictures, it's usually the first one that is the most beautiful because that's the one that captured her attention. And then she had to engage her brain and said, oh, maybe I want a wider angle or maybe I should get. But it's the first one that hits her heart to get her to take the picture.
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Maria Valmarzes
Oh, that's an interesting insight, isn't it? That's a fascinating point. Yeah, that sometimes it's that instinct that drives us to take that picture. And that's often the best frame that we get. And then we start thinking about it, and then that instinct is not. We're thinking instead of working on instinct. And then the art is a little bit diminished. Oh, what an interesting insight. I love that. I love that. Oh, I love this.
- [18:06]
Dan Barstow
And that's also what gives the power. You know, there are satellites taking pictures all the time. So if scientists want to have their volcano erupting, they'll just have the. The satellite every time flies over that part of Italy, it'll take a picture of that volcano. But that's an automated process. Whereas the human intervention, the power of the astronauts, is that they say, oh, wow, look at that and click take the picture. They frame it in a way that speaks to them. And so this human element is what gives these visuals their power.
- [18:45]
Maria Valmarzes
That is such a fascinating. I completely agree because you're absolutely right. Why is this different? When you think about it in the abstract, like why is this so different just looking at it, if you didn't know who was behind the lens, why is it so different from those satellite images or just automated images that we see captured from the iss? It is exactly that human element and that judgment that gives it this power that we can't necessarily name, but in this case we can. We know why I love that and.
- [19:16]
Dan Barstow
That'S also why I love that. This is Butch and Sonny. In fact, NASA often releases movies that they've taken but they say this is the crew of such of ISS 72 or something. But we're trying to elevate the individual. So naming the person and highlighting Butch and Sonny have a story. It helps bring this whole movie to life.
- [19:43]
Maria Valmarzes
It is a very compelling, very human story. And Dan, it's such a treat to be able to see this. And the idea of this being for Earth Day especially is just really powerful.
- [19:53]
Dan Barstow
I also mentioned the organization that is putting these together is the association of Space Explorers. This is the professional association of flown astronauts from 38 countries around the world. I'm not an astronaut, although I feel like it with all the movies I've seen. But the fact that this is the astronauts trying to tell this story themselves. We work with these musicians. The astronauts pick their favorite movies, I pick some, the musicians pick some. But again it highlights the human element of the astronauts who, you know. All these are from the International Space Station. It was up there for almost 25 years. So we even have a historical record of these views. Have they seen you know like erosion or drying up lake or something? And we see the dynamics of Earth changing and that's part of what we all have to be aware that Earth's alive and dynamic and diverse and wonderful place. But we have to love it and take care of it. Foreign.
- [21:09]
Alice Carruth
We'Ll be right back.
- [21:18]
Elliot Peltzman
Secure access is crucial for US public sector missions. Ensuring that only authorized users can access certain systems, networks or data. Are your defenses ready? Cisco's security service Edge delivers comprehensive protection for your network and users. Experience the power of zero trust and secure your workforce wherever they are. Elevate your security Strategy by visiting cisco.comgo.sse that's cisco.com go SSE welcome back.
- [22:03]
Alice Carruth
Today is Earth Day which began in 1970 as a unified response to environmental crises, from oil spills to air pollution. It marked the start of the modern environmental movement and led to the creation of the U.S. environmental Protection Agency, among other organizations. Today, Earth Day is a global event reminding us of our collective responsibility to safeguard our planet. Planet it's widely celebrated in the space community. The US Space Agency offers unique ways to engage with Earth Day. Just check out NASA's Earth Day 2025 page, which features stunning satellite imagery, interactive tools, and educational resources that showcase our planet's beauty and fragility. You can explore Earth from space, learn about climate change, and even participate in citizen science projects. Of course, there are smaller ways you can mark Today, my son's school sent home a reminder to reduce our household energy consumption and water waste. Look to adopt more green habits in our home like composting or using rain barrels. Not so helpful where I am in the high desert, but using solar power is definitely a good option. You could also get involved or even run a community cleanup event. At the very least, take today to give thanks to this amazing spaceship Earth and its incredible abilities to support life. That's it for t miners for April 22, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@space.n2k.com we're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T minus are part of the daily routine and 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. 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 Iban. Peter Kilpie is our publisher and I'm N2K senior producer Alice Carruth. Thanks for listening T minus.
- [24:28]
Elliot Peltzman
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