← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
Expanding the reach of space-based cellular broadband.
00:28:26
AST SpaceMobile secures $100M financing. Atomic-6 awarded a $2M TACFI for their solar arrays. Sateliot selects Alén Space for five new satellites. And more.
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- [00:02]
Maria Varmazis
You're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:10]
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- [00:51]
Maria Varmazis
Today is July 3rd, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T minus. T minus Money Dec A Russian cargo spacecraft is due to lift off to the International Space Station 4 McLean Engineering and Applied Technologies has been selected by NASA to provide simulation and advanced software services to the agency. LN Space has been selected to manufacture the next five satellites for satellite Atomic 6 has won a $2 million T from US Space Force Space Systems Command to mature and flight qualify the company's solar array for commercial and defense sectors. AST Space Mobile has closed a $100 million equipment financing facility led by Trinity Capital and our guest today is astronaut Scholar Abigail Glover. The Astronaut Scholarship foundation is celebrating its founders this month and we wanted to find out what one of their amazing scholars, Abigail in this case is doing with their support. Find out more when I catch up with ABS later in the show. We're kicking off with some financial news from AST Space Mobile for the top of our intel briefing today. The space based Cellular Broadband Network has announced the closing of a $100 million equipment financing facility led by Trinity Capital and for those not down with financing lingo, myself included. An equipment financing facility is a type of loan or lease agreement that allows businesses to acquire equipment by borrowing or renting it instead of paying the full purchase price upfront. Essentially, it's a way to finance the purchase or lease of equipment needed for business operations and the news has bolstered the stock price for ast. This non dilutive financing is designed to support AST Space Mobile's accelerated manufacturing and network deployment goals during 2025 and 2026. The facility used existing and planned equipment as collateral and is designed to fit into a more mature long term capital structure, facilitating future debt capital, enabling flexibility and facilitating continued growth. Andrew Johnson, who is the Chief Financial Officer of AST Space Mobile, stated in the press release that this facility is the first such type of financing agreement for the company and reflects our stage of rapid growth and transition from research and development to full scale manufacturing and network deployment. Moving on to our next story now and Atomic 6 has won a $2 million tactical funding increase from the US Space Force Space Systems Command to mature and flight qualify the company's Light Wing solar array for commercial and defense sectors. The 21 month TACFI grant will involve composite coupon testing, cell compatibility demonstration and thermal vacuum and vibe testing to prove the Light Wing's ability to survive launch and operate in space. Atomic6 says the all composite lightweight redeployable satellite power system delivers over four times more power per kilo than existing arrays and that would enable energy intensive operations such as orbital compute, high bandwidth communications and human habitation space stations. The company also announced that former ISS commander Chris Hadfield has joined its advisory board to accelerate the technology's path to market. That is not a bad name drop there. Atomic6 says it already has $2.7 billion in contract requests from major Constellation operators and their Light Wing was just selected by Cituspace to power the world's first lunar data centers, which is in partnership with Lone Star Data Holdings. So honestly kudos to them on all their great news and we're heading over to Spain now. N Space has been selected to manufacture the next five satellites for Satellite. The satellites will become part of Satellite's Low Earth Orbit Network and are scheduled for launch in 2026. Satelliet says the spacecraft position the company as a dual use civilian and defense 5G satellite connectivity operator. In line with Europe's strategic push for space autonomy, Allen Space manufactured the first four commercial satellites for satellite's constellation, which were successfully launched in August 2024 aboard a SpaceX rocket. The new satellites will be manufactured at Allen Space's facilities in Nigran, Spain and will include significant enhancements compared to the models that are already in orbit, enabling improved performance and greater payload capacity. McLean Engineering and Applied Technologies has been selected by NASA to provide simulation and advanced software services to the agency. The Simulation and Advanced Software Services 2 contract, known as SAS2, includes services from October this year through September 30, 2030 with a maximum potential value not to exceed $150 million. The contract is a single award indefinite delivery indefinite quality contract with the capability to issue cost plus fixed fee task orders and firm fixed price task orders. McLean is tasked to provide simulation and software services for space based vehicle models and robotic manipulator systems, human biomechanical representations for analysis and development of countermeasures devices, guidance, navigation and control of space based vehicles for all flight phases and space based vehicle, onboard computer system, simulations of flight software systems. Hopefully you caught all that. Responsibilities also include astronomical object surface interaction, simulation of space based vehicles, graphics support for simulation, visualization and engineering analysis, and ground based and onboarding systems to support human in the loop training. Whew. And at the time that we are getting this show ready to publish, right now a Russian cargo spacecraft is due to lift off to the International Space Station. Soyuz rocket is scheduled to launch the uncrewed Progress 92 freighter from the Russia run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today at 3:32pm Eastern Time. The spacecraft will be delivering approximately 3 tons of food, fuel and supplies to the Expedition 73 crew and after a two day in orbit journey to the station, the spacecraft will dock autonomously to the space facing port of the orbiting lab's port KOISK module on Saturday, July 5. And the Progress 92 spacecraft will remain docked to the space station for approximately six months before departing for reentry into Earth's atmosphere to dispose of trash that's been loaded by the crew. And that is it for today's intel briefing for this July 3rd. A reminder that you can always read more about all of the stories that I've mentioned in today's Intel Briefing in our show notes which are mentioned in your podcast app and also on our website space.n2k.com hey t minus crew. If your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership or recruit talent, T minus can help. We'd love to hear from you. Just send us an email@space2k.com or send us a note through our website or so we can connect about building a program to meet your goals. And a quick programming note for you Everybody. Tomorrow is July 4th and that is our Independence Day here in the United States, so we will not be publishing our daily Intel Briefing that day. But we do have some special programming that'll drop in the podcast feed though, so do not fret if you're looking for something to listen to tomorrow. But otherwise we'll be back to our regular scheduled programming with a new Deep Space episode on Saturday, July 5, and back to daily intel briefings on Monday, July 7. Happy 4th. Foreign.
- [09:43]
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- [10:21]
Maria Varmazis
Today's guest is Abigail Glover, Astronaut Scholar for 2024 and 2025. We met Abs at Spacecom earlier this year in Florida, and it turns out that she's a big fan of the show. Thank you, Abs. We're big fans of you as well, and we know that she is going to do amazing things in her career. Now, AB started by telling me about her background and how she came to find out about the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.
- [10:48]
Abigail Glover
I grew up in a small town in West Virginia and moved down to Florida in 2015. So 2015 to 2016 year was actually my senior year of high school. And at the time, I was convinced my life was gonna revolve around theater and the arts. And then something really switched over that summer. I had to sit down and do a lot of hard thinking about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And art to me is something that I can always have with me regardless of where I am. And so I decided, okay, if I could do anything in the world, what would that be? What would I want to accomplish? And I thought back of a lot of my childhood memories, like looking at the stars through my telescope with my dad and building things with my hands. And so I was like, that's it. That's what I want to do. I want to be an engineer. And so I enrolled in community college at Lake Sumter State College, and I actually started the astronomy club there. And they had a direct connect program to ucf. And I'm not familiar with Florida universities. I was really nervous to have to pick one. So actually, my very first semester of of community college, I went to the visitors complex because they had just opened Heroes and Legends and there was a plaque with Alan Shepard that talked about the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. And I immediately started googling stuff about what? What is this? This sounds so cool. I knew whatever type of engineering I had to do, it was going to be space related because it was just so cool to me. And so one of the universities on that list for ASF was University of Central Florida. So I was like, that's it. I'm going to ucf.
- [12:31]
Maria Varmazis
So once you got there, how did you get interested in doing research?
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Abigail Glover
One of my friends was like, hey, if you're starting to look for internship opportunities, it's a really tough market out there right now. You know, try to see if there's some research on campus that you can do. Reach out to a professor that you love and see if they have Anything available. And I was like, you know what? Yeah, that's a, that's a great idea. I'm going to do that. And at the time, I had just finished taking asteroids, comets and meteorites with Dr. Umberto Campines, who at the time he was teaching it was working on Osiris Rex. And so I sent him an email, you know, hey, Dr. Campins was wondering if maybe you have any research available. And he was like, unfortunately I'm going to be, I don't have anything, but let me, let me hand off your name to a couple of people. And I wound up on Anna Metkey's desk. And Anna was running this nonprofit called Exolith Lab. And Exolith Lab focuses on producing high fidelity lunar asteroid and martian regolith simulants. And, and so I interviewed with her and she's like, I don't have anything research wise, but I can tell you're eager, you want to do something. So I'll make you a deal. If you do some grunt work for a little bit, you, you crush up these rocks, you, you know, help us mix and package up the simulants. If something comes up, you will be on the, the first on my list. I was like, perfect. She's like, well, you know, before you say anything, come see the lab.
- [13:53]
Maria Varmazis
Yeah, try it out first, cuz you may hate it. Yeah, that's fair.
- [13:57]
Abigail Glover
And that is fair. And funny enough, like that was a big readout process for them lab at the time. We were working out of an outdoor storage unit with one little AC unit in a corner to cool us down. We were doing this for like four to six hours at a time. And at the end of the day we'd clean everything up, we'd push it back into the storage unit. And they're like, we understand if this isn't your cup of tea. And I was like, are you serious? I get to use this mining equipment. I get to use heavy machinery. This is so cool.
- [14:28]
Maria Varmazis
And a good attitude does take you a long way. It honestly does.
- [14:31]
Abigail Glover
Yeah. And it was great too because I didn't realize it at the time, but it was providing me with the foundational knowledge that I needed for the research I would ultimately end up doing.
- [14:41]
Maria Varmazis
So after you started having these experiences, like where do you go from there?
- [14:47]
Abigail Glover
I wanted to do an undergraduate thesis, but I didn't have a project in mind. And so I talked to my graduate student mentor, Jared Longfox. He has been such a key part of my growth and my journey over the last four years. But I asked Him. I said, hey, Jared, do you have anything that I could do for this undergraduate thesis? Like, any sort of grunt work that I can get you data on? And he was like, let me ask around. Let me see if I can do anything. And he came back a couple days later, and he was like, yeah. So Jet Propulsion Labs has this toolkit that they really need some data for. If you can get that, that would be awesome. I was like, like the jpl? They were like, yes. So I was like, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Um, so the. The toolkit that data for is called the Sparta toolkit. And the way I like to describe it to folks is that it's the Swiss army knife of geotechnical toolkits. And it's not just for the moon, but also Mars and any other rocky surface.
- [15:48]
Maria Varmazis
Nice.
- [15:49]
Abigail Glover
So it is so robust. It's absolutely phenomenal that this is something that's being developed. And I was surprised that I hadn't heard anything about it before because it's already up to, like, a TRL6, TRL7.
- [16:01]
Maria Varmazis
Really? Yeah. Wow. Okay.
- [16:03]
Abigail Glover
They've done testing in the vomit comet out in the field, all that fun stuff. So I spent three semesters conducting a literature review. I got the model from them. I modified it for a testing rig that we had. I made my own adapter for it because I knew exactly what we needed. I worked really closely with the UCF machine shop. They were phenomenal to work with. They created this really beautiful piece of art. And then I spent hours in the lab, you know, compacting this miniature test bed and deploying the unit and processing the data and seeing how it compared to published data. And the really awesome part of it was it's valid data.
- [16:43]
Maria Varmazis
That is truly extraordinary. And I know you're going to grad school after this, right? Like, you're not. You're not even done. You. You still got stuff that you're doing. Do you see regolith being a big part of your future? Like, what do you. What do you. Or do you want to do a completely different area of research? Like, what are you interested in?
- [16:58]
Abigail Glover
Yeah. So, funny enough, I always joke that my. My internship at NASA is my day job, and then regolith is, like, my dirty little secret, right? But really, it's not. Both go really hand in hand. And everybody expects my internship at NASA to be directly related to the regolith. And funny enough, it's. It's not. I've learned a lot about Artemis ii because that is the mission that we are working towards right now. I've learned so much about the ground systems that we develop to make a successful launch and also the importance of human factors. You know, it's. Yeah, I haven't heard a lot about it, but there is so much science that goes into human psychology and engineering things to make it as safe as possible for our astronauts and our ground crew. And I mean, this is going to be one of the first human rated deep space missions. And that is so exciting for me to be a part of that and to be able to see something so vastly different from my research and learn such different things. I mean, data analysis on that side of things is absolutely insane. And I realized how much I loved it. And so that's really helped with my research work as well. I am starting grad school in August, so I'm preparing to wrap up my internship and move to Colorado to attend the Colorado School of Mines to pursue a PhD in space resources.
- [18:23]
Maria Varmazis
Oh my goodness. They are not ready for you, abs. They better get ready.
- [18:32]
Abigail Glover
You know, one of my things was my grad school had to have a regolith testbed and School of Mines also has a 120 ton testbed just like UCF does. Even though I haven't even started yet. I'm already working with a group of graduate and undergraduate students to put together some information and compile some data and get ready for a CDR critical design review at the end of the summer so that we can hopefully start integrating new hardware into this testing rig as soon as I'm there in the fall.
- [19:03]
Maria Varmazis
That's amazing.
- [19:04]
Abigail Glover
My research is going to focus all on, yep, fake space dirt. It doesn't go away. I fell in love with it so much and so my whole graduate degree is going to focus on doing more quantification of these simulants because I only got to experience one small sliver of the pie. There are so many other places out there that make their own simulants aside from Exilith Lab. You know, Colorado School of Mines makes their own, Michigan Tech makes their own, NASA makes their own. And there's so many differences between them because, you know, simulant will never be 100% accurate to the real thing. And how it varies is very important for the research we're doing. And so I really want to help. There's a database floating around that NASA currently has. I really want to help NASA compile that database. And then, you know, the future is AI so understanding how to use machine learning to take that data and make it more robust and how to connect these different geotechnical properties and physical properties so that we can better understand how our stimulants are related to the real thing. So that's kind of my focus for the next four years, is really getting into even more of the geotech aspects and figuring out where to go next.
- [20:40]
Maria Varmazis
We'll be right back.
- [20:47]
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- [21:38]
Maria Varmazis
Welcome back. First up, quick update on yesterday's final story about a new interstellar object in our solar system. My literal last words on that story were that I hoped the new object would get a better name soon than interstellar object candidate A11PL3Z. Well, great minds clearly complain alike as that object does indeed have a new name as of today. Solar System. Say hello to our new friend as it makes its way through our neighborhood, Interstellar Comet 3. I still orbitally wacky by the way, though its orbital eccentricity has been downgraded to around 6 from yesterday's 10. Anyway, yes. Now onto sports. Yes, sports. Famously a thing we cover here on T minus. Well we do when it's space related. And the US Baseball team, the Colorado Rockies have entered into a patch partnership with York Space Systems this week. And that means the York Space Systems name will be a patch on the sleeve of the regular team jersey of the Colorado's Rocky team for the next five and a half years. And that does make York the very first aerospace company with this distinction in any professional sport. And that distinction being having their name on the regular jersey. Little asterisk on that story there though with the first aerospace company on the regular team jersey. Indeed that is York. There have been other aerospace companies on non regular team jerseys though Lunar Outpost had their logo on the Juventus football or soccer football jersey at one point though it was a pre match jersey. The warm up outfit in other words, and not official kit. Very close. Still feels like a nice opportunity for me to mention Shameless plug that I spoke with Lunar Outpost's co founder and Chief Strategy officer Forest Mayan recently and our chat will be the Deep Space episode coming up this Saturday, July 5th. So yeah, don't miss that conversation. 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 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 our show notes or send us an email@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're mixed by Elliot Peltzman 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 Varmazes. Thanks for listening. Have a great July 4th. We'll see you next time. T minus.
- [25:17]
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