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Maria Varma (9:36)

It is our last day recording interviews here at Commercial Space Week in Florida, and we're looking forward to sharing them with you all over the next coming weeks. My guest today is Chris Spagnoletti, Chief Product Officer at Ursa Major. Hey, it's T minus Space Daily coming to you from Commercial Space Week. And joining me today, my very special guest from Ursa Major. Why don't you introduce yourself to the audience, please?

Chris Spagnoletti (10:02)

Yes, hi. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate spending the time to listen what Ursa has to do. My name is Chris Spagnoletti. I'm the Chief Product officer for Urgent Major Technologies. We're up in Berthick, Colorado, about an hour north of Denver.

Maria Varma (10:15)

Excellent. Tell me a bit about your background because you've got a really fascinating career story.

Chris Spagnoletti (10:20)

Yeah, so I've been about 30 years in aerospace. On the general aviation side, I spent a lot of time developing flight critical systems for military commercial aircraft. I've worn a lot of hats at senior levels. I've been in sales. Going from engineering to sales is frightening. But I worked in sales, operations and then most recently I had run a business, I ran a cargo aerospace business in North Carolina. And then I came to Ursa about three years ago and found myself absolutely aligned and excited about what we're doing for the defense industrial base and hitting a lot of different sectors. So thanks, thanks for having me.

Maria Varma (11:01)

Oh, it's. Honestly, I'm happy to have you. And again, I said this to you before, but we're big fans of Ursa Major here on the show. We've had the pleasure of speaking to many folks from Ursa before and all of us just really admire what you all do and what you're building and how you're doing it. So good stuff happening. So you all are busy, booked and blessed as I've been saying a lot.

Chris Spagnoletti (11:19)

Yes, we are.

Maria Varma (11:20)

Yeah. Tell me a bit about what you've been up to lately.

Chris Spagnoletti (11:22)

Yeah, so just to kind of take a step back on Ursa in general. So Ursa was founded to create the next generation of propulsion system technology. And then looking at our recent successes with hypersonic engine and solid rocket motor technology, we decided to turn our attention to in space propulsion. And the reason that we did this is that we want America and our allies to have reliable, affordable, higher performing access to space. So when people think about access to space, they normally think, oh, that's launch. Right. Big, you know, big rocket engines, launch companies actually providing access to space. We need to think about that. Our economy and our security relies heavily on the space based assets. Yeah, right. And those space based assets are known to have this importance for the United States and that's on our adversaries are putting those at risk. And so to mitigate the risk, you know, we as a country, we're taking a distributed architecture approach. Right. So you have proliferated assets in space to mitigate.

Maria Varma (12:32)

Yep.

Chris Spagnoletti (12:32)

But for that to work, those assets have to be replaceable, highly maneuverable, but most important, they have to be available. So this, this leads to the problem statement. So we where we see the problem statement is that the current satellite industrial base has been optimized for highly complicated, boutique complicated devices that take years to develop and years to deploy.

Maria Varma (13:00)

Yeah, yep.

Chris Spagnoletti (13:01)

And then painful supply chain lead times and brittle supply chains. Overall, our standard operating procedure, what this does, this causes launch delays, cost overruns that could break business models, and then most importantly, just we can't make our mission objective, so what are we doing about it? So, yeah, at Ursa we are focused on not only providing high efficiency propulsion systems, we have developed an advanced design for manufacturing and integrated supply chain set of tools for key parts and processes. So what this means.

Maria Varma (13:38)

Yeah, tell me more about that.

Chris Spagnoletti (13:39)

Yeah, what this means is that when the satellite, satellite bus providers want to have, you know, high performing propulsion, but they want something different because not every bus is the same. So they want something changed, want something tweaked. We've developed processes and tools that allows those designs to be updated, but to be qualified to meet reliability standards. But that period of time is not going to take months and years and millions of dollars because that's what crushes people. You know, we're talking about weeks and months. So between that design philosophy, then our heritage of unparalleled engine testing, we are going to give America and our allies unfettered access to space.

Maria Varma (14:24)

Just recently, President Trump announced an executive order about the Iron Dome that has a lot of huge implications for our industry. I imagine you all the antenna perked up. I'm so curious to get your thoughts on what that means for you.

Chris Spagnoletti (14:37)

Yes, we are very interested to see where this is going to go because you know, at Ursa we have a lot of very specific technologies and skill sets that would complement what the executive order laid out, specifically hypersonic propulsion technology to provide that kinetic offset that the United States is looking for in protecting our country. There's actually a pretty big hole and gap in what the United States can currently do and Ursa Major is filling that gap. We have some very unique technologies, storable rocket engine technologies that are at TRL 6 right now. And with the help of these government agencies, we are working towards closing that loop and getting that technology into usable assets for the country. Same thing on the solid rocket motor side. We have partnerships with the Navy and with other government institutions to advance some of the same concepts I was talking to you about before. On the solid rocket motor side, we have developed a similar approach. Basically, the current business model for solid rockets is you stand up tooling for a certain rocket motor of a certain size. And if you Change it. It takes millions of dollars and multiple years to stand up one next to it that has a variation. So for an agile capability, especially when the United States is working out the requirements for what this defense shield looks like, we're going to be able to fill the need and be flexible. So you don't have to wait multiple year after year to get different configurations as we work out the details. So we're going to keep a close eye on it and we're going to see how the requirements pan out and we're going to be ready to support.

Maria Varma (16:27)

That's fantastic. Given what you all build and where you all are in the industry. I'm so always curious to get your thoughts and perspective on the state of the supply chain right now, which is always. I know it's a perennial.

Chris Spagnoletti (16:39)

Spicy. Spicy.

Maria Varma (16:41)

We're doing spicy takes today. Spicy Wednesday. Oh, I can't say that either because we're gonna, we're doing spicy takes today. You know, it's like I do this for a living and yet. Yeah. So yeah, I'm always curious to get people's perspectives on supply chain. So your thoughts?

Chris Spagnoletti (16:54)

Yeah, you know, the supply chain is a couple different lanes to think about. Like it depends on what your perspective is. If you are a satellite bus manufacturer, then your supply chain for propulsion are propulsion component suppliers. And just at the call the subsystem level, what we see is that we have a. There's this huge deficit between supply and demand.

Maria Varma (17:19)

Yeah.

Chris Spagnoletti (17:19)

And there are so many satellite buses that are needed for this proliferated architecture. There's just not enough. There's just not enough providers. So what's happened is that you have a lot of very intelligent driven folks that say hey, I'm going to fill that gap. Right. And so they go ahead and stand up a facility, a company and they feel the pressures to move fast. But what happens is that we've seen a pattern where because the pressures to move fast and a lot of these individuals maybe don't have the time to do the detailed. The devil's in the details of this stuff in terms of reliability, maintaining all of the design requirements that the product doesn't do its intended purpose. So what you have is you have a lot of startup satellite companies using startup subsystem companies and then you have risk square. So when they go and launch anybody on the, anybody within that family of subsystems that fails, nobody gets to see if their stuff works. So we have this issue ourselves where we are being very selective. You know, as we enter into in space propulsion we're being really careful to make sure that we partner with satellite bus providers that are paying attention to the details. And so we take that very seriously. And so I think that as this industry matures, I think a lot of those companies will learn from their mistakes and get better. So I think that will help the supply chain at the subsystem level is if you keep going down the chain in terms of raw material.

Maria Varma (19:01)

Yeah, that's another. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Chris Spagnoletti (19:03)

And the basic raw material.

Maria Varma (19:04)

Domestic supply.

Chris Spagnoletti (19:05)

Domestic supply, yeah. You know, the business that I had before North Carolina, going through the COVID the challenges posed by Covid, those issues in having the complete supply chain disrupted took years.

Dave (19:23)

Years.

Maria Varma (19:23)

Of course. Yeah. That's not a quick thing to fix.

Chris Spagnoletti (19:25)

No, it's not. And then what happened is, is that I believe you kind of have this nexus where those companies are really coming back. Back out of that curve.

Maria Varma (19:34)

Yeah.

Chris Spagnoletti (19:35)

The demands are increasing, but then you have this additional demand in getting this proliferated set of assets up into space.

Maria Varma (19:44)

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Spagnoletti (19:44)

So you have a compounded problem, and I think. I think it. I think we'll be able to catch up, but I think we're still two, three years away.

Maria Varma (19:51)

Fantastic. Any. Any. Any parting thoughts? Floor is yours. Anything you want to close out with today? Boy, I know everyone hates that question, right? It's like.

Chris Spagnoletti (20:01)

Yeah, I really think, you know, just to hammer home maybe a couple of the other issues that we talked about or comments. I really think that we. We're laser focused. You know, it's very easy to get distracted when there's so much opportunity. We have learned, you know, Earth is almost coming on 10 years, and we have learned to have tight focus on the things that matter to the defense industrial base and the country as a whole. And that really has been kind of a galvanizing point for us. So in space propulsion, solid rocket motor technology, hypersonics, filling that kind of blank space where we're behind from some other countries, and launch engine technology, that's really our focus. So we are excited about what's ahead of us. And then, yeah, we.

Maria Varma (20:56)

That's great. You're good.

Chris Spagnoletti (20:58)

Let's have to redo that one.

Maria Varma (21:00)

No, no, no, nothing like that. If you want to, you can, but I think that was fantastic. Honestly. No, it's. It's always really cool to hear what you all are making. Every time there's a new announcement out from Ursa, it's. Honestly, it's like we're all cheering for you, so.

Chris Spagnoletti (21:12)

No, thanks. We really appreciate it. We've got a great culture of can do attitude in Colorado. So thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Maria Varma (21:21)

It's a pleasure. Thank you. That's my job to thank you. You've been great. You have the harder job. I just get to listen. You have the hard job. So thank you so much for speaking with me today and I always learn a lot. So thanks so much. It's been great. Great. We'll be right back. Foreign.

Dave (21:55)

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Maria Varma (23:16)

Welcome back. It is the moment geologists and deep space enthusiasts like myself have been waiting for. The first update on what has been found in the samples gathered from Asteroid Bennu and that jar that just wouldn't open. NASA's Osiris Rex, which stands for, wait for it, Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security Regolith Explorer spacecraft say that five times fast collected dust and rock from the asteroid, returning to Earth in 2023. The samples from that mission have revealed molecules that on our planet are key to life, as well as a history of salt water that could have served as a broth for these compounds to interact and combine. I could go for some soup right now. We should say that the findings do not show evidence for life itself. However, they do suggest that the conditions necessary for the emergence of life were widespread across the early solar system, and that increases the odds that life could have formed on other planets and moons. Hedging my bets there on the language. The research papers have been published in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy, so if you're interested in delving into them, go on over. We're excited to hear what more can be found from these sample missions, and we're looking at you, Mars. That is it for T minus for January 30, 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 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. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president, Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I'm your host, Maria Ramazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next.

Dave (25:42)

T minus.

Maria Varma (25:47)

God, it's amazing. It's not. It's. It's dimmer than the stars in the sky now. And yet that filled up the whole sky when it went. There it goes. I hearing the silence from everyone else, like the stun silence was my favorite man. Rocket Man.

Dave (26:40)

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