← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
Europe’s week of space highs and lows.
00:25:00
Airbus announces over 2000 job cuts. ESA launches the Proba-3 mission from India. Arianespace postponed the VV25 mission until today. And more.
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- [00:02]
Maria Varmazas
You're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:10]
Alice Carruth
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- [01:01]
Maria Varmazas
A bit of whiplash in European aerospace news today. There are layoffs. That's bad. But not as many as were expected. That's good. There were two scheduled launches for ESA this week that both got delayed. That's bad. But one of them did just successfully launch and deploy. That's good. And then there were plans afoot for European aerospace companies to try and unite to compete against Starlink. That's good. Today is December 5th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmazas and this is T Minus Airbus announces over 2000 job cuts ESA launches the Prova 3 mission from India. Aryan Space postponed the VV25 mission until today and our guest today is author Robert Zubrin. He is the current President of the Mars Society and will be talking to T minus producer Als Carus about the future of Mars missions. Happy Thursday everybody. Here is your intel briefing. We're kicking off the show today with not the most positive news for the most wonderful time of the year. Airbus has announced that it is cutting over 2,000 jobs in defense and space. That is about 5% of its second largest division. The only silver lining here is that the cuts were not as severe as the European group had first warned back In October, when 2,500 layoffs were initially expected. More than half of the actual 2043 total job reductions affecting 1,128 positions will fall in the space systems business following heavy losses on satellites. The news was shared by Reuters, who reported the cuts following the first of two days of closed door briefings for the aerospace companies unions on the results of a lengthy efficiency review. The job cuts are due to be implemented by mid-2026 and take aim at overheads and fixed costs by focusing mainly on white collar and management positions rather than operational ones. Amid all this, according to another report from Reuters, Airbus, Telus and Leonardo, the three European aerospace giants, are discussing the possibility of forming a joint satellite venture, tentatively named Project Bromo in order to strengthen Europe's position in the competitive space economy. Modeled after the MBDA European missile consortium that Airbus and Leonardo are already a part of, the proposed standalone satellite venture would combine satellite assets from three companies instead of consolidating them under a single owner. Is this in response to Starlink's dominance in LEO and a big swing to scale up Europe's fragmented space industry? Absolutely. Europe's traditional satellite makers, which have long been focused on complex geostationary systems, have struggled to compete with the rapid growth of smaller cost effective sate. Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani confirmed that the MBDA model is guiding the talks, though we should not expect it to be governed exactly the same way. All that said, the idea behind this project remains in the early stages and it could all take years to implement. As mentioned in the previous story today, this potential collaboration comes amid ongoing job cuts in the European space sector. If successful, though, Project Bromo could mark a significant step towards consolidating Europe's satellite industry, though political and technical challenges obviously remain. After a bit of delays, the European Space agency launched their Probe 3 Sun Observing Mission aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's flagship rocket. Earlier today, the ProBA 3 spacecraft lifted off on a four stage PSLV XL rocket from Satish Devon Space center in India. 14 ESA member states, including Canada came together on this mission, which ESA says will demonstrate game changing European technology in the areas of autonomous operations and precision maneuvering. ESA's twin Proba 3 platforms plan to produce artificial solar eclipses in orbit, giving prolonged views of the Sun's corona. Arianespace took to social media yesterday to share the news of the pause to their launch countdown for the VV25 mission on their Vega C launcher. Ariane shared that the postponement was due to a mechanical issue preventing the withdrawal of the mobile gantry. The good news is that the launch countdown has restarted for the targeted launch attempt later today, December 5th at 6:20pm local time in French Guiana. Arianespace says the launcher and its passenger, the Copernicus Sentinel 1C satellite, are in stable and safe conditions. Godspeed Vega C Northrop Grumman has handed over mission operations and completed activation of Space Norway's Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission constellation. The new satellites, which were all launched in August, expand access to satellite communications in the high north for both the US Space Force and for Norway. The 2 satellite constellation includes 2 enhanced polar system recapitalization payloads and others for Space Norway, which is a state owned firm that develops and manages space based services for government and commercial use. The satellites are intended to operate in a highly elliptical orbit to provide SATCOM capabilities for both commercial and military applications in the Arctic region. And speaking of military operations, the US Space Force has activated its sixth service component, the United States Space Forces Japan. The field component will be based at Yokota Air Base and officially started operations in Japan on December 4. US Space Force Japan presents forces and space expertise under US Space Forces Indo Pacific in direct support of US forces Japan, China launched a new group of satellites into space earlier today from the Taiyuan Space Launch center in north China's Shanxi Province. A modified Long March 6 carrier rocket carried the third batch of spacecraft that will add to the Space Sail Constellation. The newly launched satellite group includes 18 satellites, according to details released online by the Chinese commercial satellite constellation developer Shanghai Space Sail Technologies. The total number of in orbit Space Sail Constellation satellites has now reached 54, further enhancing the continuous communication capabilities of the constellation, according to the company. Muon Space has been awarded a CBER Phase 2 contract by SpaceWorks through the Space Systems Command to advance space based environmental monitoring capabilities. The contract will support Muon Space's development of a multi mission multispectral electro optical infrared instrument aimed at filling critical data gaps with applications for both Department of Defense and commercial use. Gregory Smerin, President of muonspace, said in the press release that the contract will allow Muon to evolve their firesat infrared instrument to include additional spectral bands. This will allow the company to observe cloud cover as well as wildfires, creating a highly versatile instrument that they say can serve multiple markets. Falcon 9 rocket launches have become rather nominal over the last few years. So much so that SpaceX just celebrated the 350th Falcon 9 launch yesterday. And coincidentally, it also marked the 300th successful booster landing for the space giant. The Falcon 9 carried the Starlink 914 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 7:05pm local time and all that concludes our briefings for today. Head to the Selected Reading section of our show Notes for further information on all the stories that we've mentioned throughout the show.
- [09:29]
Alice Carruth
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- [10:18]
Maria Varmazas
Today's guest is author Robert Zubrin. He is the current president of the Mars Society, and in today's chat he spoke with T minus producer Alice Carruth.
- [10:29]
Robert Zubrin
We are talking about this really incredible idea of us sending humanity to Mars. At the moment, we're still not even getting robots to Mars inventions to Mars, or worse still, we're not getting those samples back that we are collecting up there with the rovers. And the Mars Sample Return Program has definitely been a kind of hot point, shall we say politically over the last few years. It's been funded, it's had the funding taken away. What would you like to see as the Mars Society for the future of the Mars Sample Return Program?
- [10:59]
The answer to this question depends upon, how can I put it, the scope of thinking you're allowing for the answer. I mean, as an engineer, I could propose much better ways to do the sample return mission than the current design that are greatly simplified.
- [11:15]
Okay, and they are looking for that right now, aren't they? They're hoping to get people to come up with ideas.
- [11:20]
They say they are. But look, the Mars Sample Return was approached like a teacher who wants to rewrite macbeth in order to make sure that everyone in the class has a good part. So yes, we're going to do this with a European orbiter and this thing and that thing and they've rewritten the play to give everybody a speaking part, but that's not the most efficient way to do it. And the. So yes, simplified program. First of all, if you get rid of the planetary protection nonsense, okay, right now with a Curiosity sized lander, we could land a ton on Mars, which is enough for a two stage Mars ascent vehicle with a capsule on top and an Emmy sized rover that could go out and get the sample, stick it in the capsule and shoot the thing directly back to Earth without having to rendezvous in orbit with a European orbiter which is going to use electric propulsion that people want to use electric propulsion, ion drives, it'd be very cool. And have an autonomous rendezvous in dock in Mars orbit, which has never been done. And doing this and that and the other thing and having an additional launch that can fail and wow, just direct their direct return, keep it simple. However, I would have to say that on the time scale that they're proposing to do Mars sample return, we could do humans to Mars and return not with two kilograms of samples, but with 500 kilograms of samples, and not just 500 kilograms of samples, but 500 kilogram samples that have been chosen out of 5,000 kilograms of samples that had been collected on Mars. And this is the pick of the lot. So really, in terms of robotic exploration right now, you take the $10 billion they're currently discussing for sample return. I'd rather use that to have 2,500 million dollars, that is to say, medium sized missions. Orbiters, landers, airplanes, helicopters, rovers, drillers, different things that just go one way to Mars, but a tremendous diversity of things. Okay, We've now demonstrated the ability to fly helicopters on Mars. That's fantastic. Instead of flying, you know, a toy helicopter, let's fly a hundred kilogram helicopter that is well instrumented. And now you've got a rover that can travel literally a hundred times, even a thousand times actually as far and as fast as ground rovers can. And it could fly into the canyon, sample there, and then fly out of the canyon. This, I mean, incredible things we could do. Why aren't we doing this? So, and you know, you take the curiosity of perseverance missions, you each flew, you know, six or seven instruments on those rovers. Okay, there were like maybe 100 instruments proposed for those rovers. Okay, one in 20 got on the rover. There's plenty. In other words, there's plenty of room right now to send lots more rovers to Mars and with different kinds of instruments. Life detection, detection instruments. We haven't flown in life detection experiment on Mars since Viking 1976, half a century ago. Half a century ago. And furthermore, if you flew 20 medium missions instead of the one sample return mission, sample return mission, you've got three major elements that are in series with each other. If any of them fail, the whole mission fails. You send 20 missions to Mars that are independent of each other. If three of them fails, the other 17 succeeds and you still got a great program. So that's what I would do with the robotic exploration program, frankly. I would drop sample return and use the funds to fund a rich and diverse array of small and medium sized missions. Go lots of places too.
- [15:08]
Yeah, I can certainly see that. With the commercial competition, as we're seeing at the moment with the lunar competition, the commercial lunar payload services contracts have gone out as well. Hopefully we can see more competition in the future years. So before we close out today, I'd love you to kind of leave our audience with a bit of thought about what the Mars Society is hoping to achieve in the next five to 10 years and how people can get involved with it as well.
- [15:31]
Well, it's a couple things. Number one, first of all, we have one wing that we've set up called the Mars Technology Institute and has sponsored this contest called Mars Against Hunger, which is challenging people to develop technologies that could decisively improve the efficiency of food production. And people can read about that on our website, which is marssociety.org we're also doing a political mobilization in the United States to get Congress to demand that NASA produce within six months a program to get humans to Mars within 10 years. That is produce the plan within six months. And the plan has to be humans to Mars in 10 years. We're not interested in humans to Mars in 30 years because if you say you're going to do anything in 30 years, it means you're not going to actually do anything now. We actually got to the moon because Kennedy put a deadline on it. Okay, Now Musk, you see, the starship is the transportation system and that's coming along well. But you need more than just the transportation system if you're actually going to send humans to Mars. You need a whole array of surface systems which are harder to develop in the commercial sector because unlike a space launch system, which clearly has commercial application, you can launch constellations of satellites with it. For example, a Mars spacesuit has limited commercial potential, at least at this point. Someday it will, someday it'll be like, close, okay? But today it's little out there. Mars vehicles, the system mission architecture requires a nuclear react actor to make the return propellant on Mars. And SpaceX is not in position to make that because it involves controlled material. So this is going to need to be a public private partnership. And I want NASA to realize that and produce a plan. This is how we're going to work together with Musk and others to make this happen. So we have our people visiting our Congress, people all over the place, saying that we want them to become co sponsors of the bill. And then there's any number of other things we're going to be doing and we'll be discussing them at our next Mars Society convention, which will be held in Los Angeles next fall. So. And that'll be open to anyone who wants to come. So you can check us out@Marsociety.org if you want to read about my vision. I've got two books. One's called the Case for Mars. The other is called the New World on Mars, which by the way, an edition of was just published by Penguin in the United Kingdom. So it's available directly in England, Scotland, Wales, Morgan Island. And also just read all the stuff on our website as you pointed out, we've got lots of stuff.
- [18:30]
Maria Varmazas
We'll be right back. Welcome back. Or beat. The space training company with a flair for luxury just landed a $4 million Series A funding round to take astronaut prep to new heights, complete with champagne service. Partnering with French hospitality giant Accor. Or BEAT plans to blend space readiness with five star treatment at its upcoming spaceflight gateway campus. Because who says you can't train for zero gravity while sipping a martini? Their new experience Train Fly program promises to prep future space tourists with experiences like living in space taking place in Paris for three days and four nights. In Paris, you'll experience authentic space food while learning to cook your own. That was a quote. This includes food in a tin with the label Food for Extreme Pleasure written on it. And I'll just take their word for it. There's also Space Health and the C Space Odyssey, both taking place in Curacao. And you really don't have to twist my arm to send me there either. The programs start in 2025, all for a cool $19,500 per person. Yeah, so if that price tag doesn't make you blink, you've certainly got plenty of time to book a spot before liftoff. Astronaut training no longer has to feel like boot camp, everybody. Apparently, it can now feel like a really pricey vacation. That's it for T minus for December 5, 2024, 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 Stopes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karpf. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T minus.