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- [00:02]
Maria Varmazas
You're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:10]
Dave
Krogle is AI built for the enterprise SOC. Fully private schema, free and capable of running in sensitive air gapped environments. Krogle autonomously investigates thousands of alerts weekly, correlating insights across your tools without data leaving your perimeter. Designed for high availability across geographies, it delivers context aware auditable decisions aligned to your workflows. Krogle empowers analysts to act faster and focus on critical threats, replacing repetitive triage with intelligent automation to help your SOC operate at scale with precision and control. Learn more@krogle.com that's C-R-O GL.com today is July 7th, 2025.
- [01:04]
Maria Varmazas
I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T minus.
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Jack
T minus 20 seconds to LOS.
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Maria Varmazas
The NASA Tempo air quality monitoring mission is extended to 2026 brands to launch a tender for satellite based their high speed rail. U.S. space Systems Command awards $2.8 billion in contracts for secure space communications, Druva space to provide solar panels for Pixel's Hyperspectral constellation. European Launcher Challenges Top five Small Launchers Shortlist announced and it's time for our reg check in with our friends at Aegis Space Law. This month they're going to be discussing orbital debris mitigation and what regulatory frameworks, if any, are in place to address this. That's in the second half of today's show. Definitely stay tuned for that. For our first story today, five companies are officially one step closer to securing ESA launch contracts worth up to 169 million euros each. The European Space Agency has completed the first stage of its two phase European Launcher Challenge, pre selecting five private European launch providers to advance in their competition. And those companies are ISAR Aerospace, Maya Space, Orbital Launch Express, PLD Space and Rocket Factory Augsburg. This European Launcher Challenge initiative is part of ESA's broader push to strengthen Europe's access to space by by encouraging commercial competition and technical innovation in launch services. And to be a bit more specific, the Launcher Challenge is a tender with two components. It's designed to secure both near term launch services for ESA from 2026 to 2030 and that's the first component and to support future capability upgrades with at least one in flight demonstration and that would be the second part. ESA has set a target of 169 million euros per Challenger for for all activities covered under both components. And now that the first stage is complete, ESA will begin a dialogue with the selected Challengers and work with member states to finalize the program and funding strategy ahead of the ESA Council at ministerial level or CM25 which is set for November. Only the five pre selected companies that I've mentioned earlier will be eligible for the second stage of the tender which will open following CM25 again in November. Contract signatures are expected shortly afterwards and this is very exciting news for these five companies. This is a story no doubt we will be watching closely. Let's head on over to India for our next story now and satellite imaging company Pixel has partnered with Druva Space to power its next generation hyperspectral satellite constellation. Pixel's upcoming fleet will be using Druva's Solus space grade solar panels. Andruva says their Solus panels can deliver several kilowatts of reliable power in orbit and are already being exported to customers around the world, including not only the Government of India as well as customers in the uae, Austria, Australia and France. And for its part, Pixel says it is building a constellation of 18 to 24 hyperspectral satellites with daily global revisit which will make it ideal for industries like agriculture, mining, oil and gas and environmental monitoring. Both companies framed this deal as more than just a hardware deal and they say it's a statement about India's rising role in building globally competitive space infrastructure. Dhruva's new 280,000 square foot spacecraft manufacturing facility in Hyderabad will anchor their ability to scale heading on over to the United States next and the US Space Force's Space Systems Command has tapped Boeing to kick off the next chapter in secure space communications under a 2.8 billion US dollar contract. The space Force says that Boeing will build the first two satellites of the Evolved Strategic SATCOM Program, or ess. These new satellites will replace the current system that supports critical nuclear command and control, modernizing how the United States communicates during crises. Space Systems Command says that Boeing's ESS satellites will deliver resilient, encrypted connections for US Forces worldwide. The contract includes options to build two more, forming the first phase of a broader rollout, and this move builds on earlier work by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, who developed and tested prototypes over the past five years to prove key technologies and reduce risk. The broader ESS effort includes ground systems, encryption and user terminals. With future satellites planned under a $12 billion budget. The goal is to have faster delivery, better coverage, notably including over the Arctic and a more secure space based backbone for US national defense. Let's head on over to France now and France is joining Europe's push to bring satellite Internet to its trains. The French Transport Minister announced plans for France's state owned train operator SNCF to equip all of their trains with satellite connectivity by 2027 using Europe's Iris Squared constellation. And that's the EU's upcoming secure connectivity Network that's aiming to rival Starlink and OneWeb. Currently, trains in France rely on terrestrial 4G and 5G, which do struggle in rural areas. Satellite links promise seamless, faster Internet for passengers, which would present a competitive edge for rail operators and a boost for European space sovereignty. And last up, NASA is extending its Tempo mission and that's the Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution instrument and that mission is being extended through 2026. Tempo is hosted on Intelsat 40e and delivers hourly high resolution air quality data across North America. It measures pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and ozone, tracking their movement and transformation in near real time. Tempo improves how we model pollution sources and supports environmental policy decisions. That's it for today's Intel Briefing. As always, we have more for you than we can possibly cover in our top five. And so today my colleague, N2K Director of Enterprise Content Strategy, Mayan Plout, is here to tell us more. Mayan.
- [08:17]
Mayan Plout
Thanks Maria. In addition to today's top five, we have a look back at recent spaceflight activities in China from our friends@nasaspaceflight.com and we have an announcement from a German thermal satellite maker. They just opened a new headquarters in Greece to help build out the company's Wildfire Constellation.
- [08:33]
Maria Varmazas
Awesome. So where can our listeners find all of the links that you just mentioned for more information?
- [08:39]
Mayan Plout
All that info is in the Show Notes with links and you can find them in your favorite podcast app. You can also go to the N2K T website which is space.n2k.com you can just click on the episode title from today for all of those links and happy reading.
- [08:54]
Maria Varmazas
Hi T minus crew. If you would like daily updates from us directly in your LinkedIn feed, be sure to follow the official N2K T page over on LinkedIn. And if you're more interested in the lighter side of what we do, here we are us daily on Instagram. That's where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions, and even sometimes some behind the scenes treats. Links are in the show notes. Hope you'll join us there.
- [09:41]
Dave
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Jack
Foreign.
- [10:56]
Maria Varmazas
I'm going to hand things over now to our friends at Aegis Space Law for our regular Space Law segment.
- [11:06]
Will Lewis
All right, welcome to this episode. Today we have a special guest, Will Lewis from Aegis Space Law, and we're going to be talking about something called Orbital debris mitigation. Hey, Will.
- [11:17]
Jack
Hey, Jack. How are you?
- [11:19]
Will Lewis
Pretty good. Hey, have you ever seen the movie Wall E?
- [11:23]
Jack
Yeah, love that movie.
- [11:25]
Will Lewis
So there's this scene in Wall E where, you know, they're kind of zooming out from Earth and there's this massive band of trash, all these old deprecated satellites floating around. I, I keep hearing from people, you know, aren't really in the industry, but who kind of ask is like, you know, is that where we're going with all of this, with all these satellites up there? So, so, yeah, I guess I'll pass that question to you, Will. Do we just have this massive band of, of satellites crashing into each other? Is there something we should be doing about it? What, what exactly is going on with orbital debris and orbital debris mitigation?
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Jack
So, yeah, let me try and give just sort of an overview of at least my perception of where things are physically on orbit. Right. So one of the things to keep in mind, and I think this is certainly relevant for your Wall E example, is the further away from the Earth a spacecraft is, the longer it's going to take to deorbit. Most spacecraft, the eventual conclusion of their lifetime is that they will enter Earth's atmosphere and either dissolve in the atmosphere demise or some chunk of it will land back on Earth. You know, even the satellites up in the geostationary graveyard orbit, which is 36,000 km away from the surface of the Earth. My understanding is Those eventually come back down in thousands of years. But to give you a sense, right, while it takes place 700 years in the future or something like that, there are satellites in that 1200 kilometer altitude range that conceivably could be on orbit for, you know, a few hundred years. I don't know if 700 is exactly right. Solar weather has been pretty intense and that does tend to accelerate things. But particularly propulsionless spacecraft, right? They really are just subject to how long it takes gravity to kick in. So, you know, there is the potential for satellites to be on orbit for that period of time, even if humanity stops launching them for a while. But that said, you know, I don't think the density that's represented in Wally is, is likely to happen at least on our current trajectory. Most of the satellites that are launched are launched in sort of like it's not very low orbit, is sort of below the International Space Station, but, and maybe even below 400km altitude. But there's this band in Leo between say 475km, maybe 400km and 600km where the vast majority of deployments are. That'll change a little bit. With Project Kuiper. It'll probably go up to like six, gosh, it's been a while, 630km or something like that. But all of those satellites, even if you just let them fall, even if they didn't have propulsion, most of those will just fall within five years. That's sort of been the design of the Commission's rules. A number of others might take a bit longer. The ones higher up, if they were just falling, you know, might take seven or 10 or 12 years. But you know, for example, the Project Kuiper systems all have propulsion. And so typically if you do have a spacecraft launched closer to 600 then 500km, you're going to have either a propulsion, sort of a spacecraft with propulsion, satellite with propulsion, or a longer term mission. But we're not talking about, you know, hundreds of years on orbit and that's really where all the density is. So, you know, I think one of the things the commission's done intentionally is try to encourage everyone to operate at lower orbits as a mitigation technique to say, hey, this way if something goes wrong or if one spacecraft bumps into another spacecraft, you know, the damage is limited in terms of time. Because I think the real concern is what you're talking about some orbital debris belt that is sort of persistent, you know, sort of. When Iridium hit the Roscoe satellite, Spice satellite all those years ago, Right. That is an orbital debris cloud that's going to be up there for a long time because iridium's at a higher altitude. But for the most part, particularly the highest density deployments, those are, all, even under the worst of circumstances, not going to be on orbit for a human being's lifetime, much less centuries.
- [15:56]
Will Lewis
The most impressive thing you said so far is you actually remember when Wall E is set. I was very impressed by that. But so, you know, I've seen this graphic a lot in, you know, different articles where they show how many satellites are in orbit. And it's a graphic. And what they do is they, you know, scale up the size of a satellite so that you can actually see it in the graphic. But based on how they scale up the satellites, it looks like there's just this unbelievable congestion and people, I think, see those images and get a really false sense for how congested things are. I was doing a little bit of research and I think that at any given time there's something like 50, 60,000 ships on the ocean, whereas there's something like 10,000 satellites in orbit. So much smaller number of satellites on a much larger ball, let's say. Yeah, and, and of course, we don't see ships crashing into each other constantly. But then again, that said, when ships do crash into each other, they don't create giant clouds of orbital, of debris that stay around. And, and of course, ships can maneuver once they see each other coming, much more so than satellites can. So there's, there's a sense in which sometimes it seems like maybe the things are exaggerated, but there's, there's definitely a real risk and real problem there.
- [17:27]
Jack
Yeah, you know, I, I agree and I, I think, you know, you're right that a graphic like that is misleading because space is massive and these satellites, while, you know, there are a lot of them, they're. Well, I shouldn't say they're not all that big. Some of them are very big, but most of them are very small. But, you know, your shipping comparison is really interesting and maybe I'll draw a couple of parallels from that. First, I will note there was just like a crash, there was like a big collision in like the Red Sea like a couple of days ago. So it still does happen. I know this well.
- [18:01]
Will Lewis
I used to be a maritime lawyer. I used to deal with some of those collisions. So, yeah, they absolutely do happen. I don't mean to suggest they don't.
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Jack
No, but I think what, what, what is worthwhile as a parallel is, you know, with ships, one, you're right, human beings are on board, they can see what's going on. Also, in terms of locating ships, right, you can go online and you can figure out where like a maritime vessel is within, like tens of meters, something to that effect. And then if you're on board the ship, if you're actually on the system, you know exactly where you are, right? So even with that sort of precise, sort of ability to know location and the fact that there are humans there to sort of oversee any potential mechanical errors, there are still, let's call them, conjunction issues. So I do want to say that I think just about everyone I've ever dealt with in the space industry, something on orbit, takes this very seriously. And they, you know, particularly the big players, SpaceX, their spacecraft have propulsion. You know, you Never hear about SpaceX satellites almost running into each other because they're very good about managing their constellation in that sense. I mean, their scale of deployment does create an issue. But when in control of their own sort of operations, you know, they obviously have a lot at stake and they, they take that seriously, as does everyone else.
- [19:26]
Will Lewis
If you don't mind, let's go ahead and shift to, like, what, what the regulations actually are in terms of having to put mitigation plans together. Like, like how long does that take? How hard is it?
- [19:37]
Jack
So NASA actually has a freely available software. It's called the Orbital Debris. No, that's not what it's called, but it turns out an Orbital Debris Assessment Report. The software is called the acronym's das. I'm forgetting sort of what that stands for. It does take a lot of computing power to run, and you need a set of specific inputs about your spacecraft and its operational parameters to run that simulation. But if you can do that, and you have to request it from NASA, and it usually takes about three weeks to get approval if you're foreign, I think that's maybe a different challenge. I'm not entirely sure. But you can sort of spit out the answers you need for your FCC authorization. In that case, what the FCC is looking at is the probability of your spacecraft potentially colliding with another spacecraft or a small object. And they have sort of set out in the rules different thresholds for complying with these standards. And the NASA software will aggregate or do this on a probabilistic basis based on the potential of your mission parameters. They will also ask you about your steps for limiting accidental explosions. Right. Anything that has propulsion, has fuel of some sort of. Most of these systems have batteries, even if they are propulsionless. And so Any sort of energy on orbit. You know, you have to make sure that that's not going to potentially cause a debris event on its own, similar with fuel. They ask about sort of, hey, how are you going to present prevent the release of liquids or at least on an accidental basis. And there will be concerns if your fuel doesn't vaporize somewhat instantly on orbit, because if it turns into a liquid, then it's just a bullet going like 15,000 kilometers an hour. So there are lots of different elements of that on orbit. Again, all probabilistic and sort of design related. Right. You have to explain to the commission, hey, this isn't going to be a problem. And then the other piece of this is the human.
- [21:46]
Will Lewis
Real quick though, how high fidelity do companies need to be when they're putting those, when they're answering those questions and how much do they need to show their math versus just hey, we've determined it's a 10% probability, trust us. And then how much pushback is there from the commission? How much back and forth is there trying to massage it and get it right?
- [22:11]
Jack
So if you have just a standard satellite mission, they're going to take the odor values pretty straight up, right? What I think becomes an issue is when you're doing things, the odor is designed to calculate something that's falling. And you know, in a normal orbit, when you have some of these new space applications, that is when you get to sort of additional FCC scrutiny, right. If you're doing a rendezvous and proximity operation, they'll say, hey, how are you doing this safely? Like, how are you really preventing the collision when your intent is to get within 10 meters of this spacecraft or potentially dock with it? The same thing with spacecraft with propulsion. They'll, they'll sort of further scrutinize potentially your, your risk for accidental leakage or accidental explosion. So it'll depend on the mission. But ultimately the odor is sort of an accepted standard. It's identified in the rules. The places where you'd need higher fidelity results are. I think if you're going to bring something back down intentionally, like some of the reentry stuff that we're seeing there. The other thing is the human casualty element of it. The commission's very strict about the potential for spacecraft not demising and then potentially causing injury to human beings on the ground. And so if you run afoul of that, you may want a higher resolution study to demonstrate that you are still going to be compliant.
- [23:33]
Will Lewis
Do you see anything coming down the road that's going to change how all of this is done. Do you see maybe some of these regulations being moved to a different agency? Possibly.
- [23:44]
Jack
You know, I really don't have a sense of where this is going to go. Originally Office of Space Commerce was going to assume control of tracks and I thought then at that point they might look into potentially regulating space traffic management. I think those plans are somewhat in flux now and I really have no sense of what the next plan is in terms of things that I would sort of keep an eye on for the future and how it might change the policies as they exist. The first I've mentioned a couple of times is solar weather. There's sort of this growing need for understanding how this is, is working more accurately in part because if you can't go very high because you have to be down in five years, consistent with the commission's rules, then if the solar weather is unusually intense, it can really cut your operational lifetime short. And so some operators are losing a year or two of operational lifetime on their assets because they deploy low and then the sun pushes them down faster than they expected to. So that's something I, you know, when I talk about maybe more fine tuned regulations, that, that is something I think perhaps could be worked on with better data and better information. The other thing that I'm. Maybe this is a down the line issue, but there have been some initial studies that suggest that deorbiting masses of spacecraft into our atmosphere is starting to have a, a measurable effect on the atmosphere. No, no clear indication as to what it might cause or what it means in the long term. But there are elements in the atmosphere that weren't there before and have been somewhat tied directly to spacecraft demising. I'm very curious to see where that goes because intuitively it does kind of make sense that maybe burning these things up in the air isn't sort of the best approach. And other than that I'm not sure what the solution is. Right. I, I think maybe that's something we'd have to figure out, but it's worth watching because, you know, we're launching more than ever and all of these spacecraft are designed to come down in a matter of five years. So if it is something that has an effect on the natural environment, you know, it might.
- [25:58]
Will Lewis
That is intuitive.
- [25:59]
Jack
Yeah.
- [25:59]
Will Lewis
I keep reading that washing plastic Tupperware in my dishwasher is releasing lots of microplastics into my environment. So if spacecraft are burning up in the atmosphere, it's probably doing something too.
- [26:12]
Jack
Yeah. And I think it's about the scale. Right. We've never done it at this scale and the scale's only getting bigger, honestly. So that will bear watching for sure, I think.
- [26:22]
Will Lewis
All right, great Will. Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I think that'll wrap it up. Listeners, if you have any questions for us, please shoot us an email and ask and we'll try to get them answered in a future episode. Thanks so much.
- [26:37]
Jack
Thank you, Jack. These are great questions. And now I kind of want to watch Wally again, so I may do that this weekend.
- [26:57]
Maria Varmazas
We'll be right back.
- [26:59]
Jack
Foreign.
- [27:04]
Dave
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- [27:58]
Maria Varmazas
More than 50 personal items from the estate of Dr. Sally Ride, who was the first American woman in space, were auctioned in Los Angeles last month, raising over $145,000 for the Sally Ride estate. The collection included mission flown medals, handwritten notes and rare memorabilia spanning her trailblazing career with NASA. Among the top sellers was a Robbins medal flown aboard Apollo 11, which went to the moon and back and fetched $17,690. Ride's personal mission diary from STS41G, which was her second and final spaceflight, brought in nearly $9,700. And that 1984 mission was the first to feature two women in space at the same time and included Earth observations and satellite deployments aboard the space shuttle Challenger. And normally I would discourage anyone from reading someone else's diary, but in this case I will make an exception. And the sale also included flown medals from her historic 1983 STS7 mission, where ride became the first American woman in orbit. Those medals are custom struck silver keepsakes that astronauts carry on board and then later distribute to crew colleagues or collectors. Sorry to tell any collectors who are listening to this, but the auction already closed. In fact, it closed on June 26, which would have been Ride's 73rd birthday. She died at age 61 in 2012 from pancreatic cancer. That is a young age for a trailblazer like her. These auctioned items from her estate perhaps gave fans and collectors a small way to celebrate her enduring legacy in their own way. Not just of Sally Ride as an incredible astronaut, but but also as a physicist, an educator, and an icon of what's possible. And that's T minus brought to you by N2K CyberWire we would love to know what you think of our podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the easiest insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our 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 Senior Producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltier 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 Varmazas. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
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Jack
T minus.
- [31:32]
Dave
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