← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
FCC to expand satellite spectrum assets.
00:25:27
FCC looks to expand satellite spectrum assets. FAA authorizes Starship to return to flight. Impulse Space and SES sign a multi-launch agreement. And more.
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- [00:02]
Maria Varmazas
You're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:11]
Dave
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- [01:29]
Maria Varmazas
I'm Maria Varmanzas and this is T minus T minus 20 seconds. The Texas Space Commission Board of Directors has voted to approve grant applications that total $20.7 million. 4 IceEye is partnering with Japan's IHI Corporation on the development of a SAR constellation of up to 24 satellites. Impulse Space and SES have signed a multi launch agreement. The Federal Aviation Authority has authorized Starship to return to Flight 1. The FCC is looking to significantly expand satellite spectrum assets across multiple bands for current and next generation space based broadband connect. Later in the program Ryan from NASASpaceflight.com will be bringing us the weekly Space Traffic report. He'll be wrapping up the launch news from across the globe over the last week and previewing what's schedul for the next seven days. So stick around for more on that after today's intelligence briefing. And we are kicking off our intel briefing for this Friday with some big updates from the United States Government. The Federal Communications Commission has voted to start proceedings that could significantly expand satellite spectrum assets across multiple bands for for current and next generation space based broadband connectivity. And when we say significant we mean it. They're looking to unlock more than 20,000 MHz of spectrum for high speed Internet delivered from space. That amount is more than the sum total of all spectrum available for satellite broadband right now. In a notice of proposed rulemaking, the commission is seeking comment on expanding satellite connectivity across four spectrum bands. These underused bands, located in spectrum neighborhoods that are ideal for satellite broadband, are prime candidates for modernization. The Commission intends to make good on its years long efforts to unleash these bands for next generation services. The 12.7 and 42 GHz bands, which the Commission previously considered for terrestrial use, are adjacent to workhorse satellite frequencies in the KU and V bands. Meanwhile, there has been growing and intense support to open up the 52 GHz band domestically. After international decisions at WRC 19 and by seeking comment on the W band, the Commission continues recent initiatives to push the limits of high band spectrum and provide a first mover advantage for U.S. licensed operators. And speaking of government decisions, the Federal Aviation Authority has completed the comprehensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap. They've determined that the company has satisfactorily addressed the causes of the mishap and and therefore you've guessed it, the Starship vehicle can return to flight. SpaceX is required to update its flight safety analysis to account for all outcomes of previously flown flights, including mishap events, and to calculate and establish hazards areas. The FAA is expanding the size of hazard areas both in the United States and other countries based on the updated flight safety analysis and because SpaceX intends to reuse a previously launched super heavy booster rocket from for the first time, that is impressive. The aircraft hazard area for Flight 9 covers approximately 1,600 nautical miles and extends eastward from Starbase. That's up from the approximately 885 nautical miles that were set for Flight 8. So the question that you're all asking I'm asking it too. When do we expect to see the Starship back in action? And it seems that SpaceX was prepared for the safety review outcome and has already tentatively scheduled to launch Test flight number nine on Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30pm Central Time from Starbase, the newly anointed city in Texas. Moving on now, Impulse Space and SES have signed a multi launch agreement. The companies plan to use Impulse's Helios kick stage to shorten the time required for the selected SES satellites to reach their final orbital position. This applies whether they're on geostationary or medium earth orbit, but by transporting the satellites from low Earth orbit directly to higher energy orbits in hours. The first mission is currently planned for 2027 and it will feature a dedicated deployment from a medium lift launcher in LEO, followed by Helios transferring the 4 ton class payload directly to GEO within 8 hours of launch. The agreement provides opportunity for additional missions, which SES says will allow them to rapidly and responsively launch satellites to their selected orbit on demand. ISCI is partnering with Japan's IHI Corporation on the development of a SAR constellation of up to 24 satellites. The spacecraft planned to be used to provide Earth observation data for military, civilian and commercial purposes. The companies have signed an agreement to include establishing a satellite manufacturing facility in Japan with satellites to be operated domestically. The initiative is intended to support Japan's space ambitions of boosting space industries while strengthening national security and resilience and the Texas Space Commission Board of Directors has voted to approve grant applications that total $20.7 million. The funding will go to five proposed projects. West Central Texas Council of Governments Abilene will receive up to $175,000. Fluxworks will also be getting up to $347,000. Axiom Space, based out of Houston, has been granted up to 5 and a half million cesium, Astro is getting up to $10 million and the Aldrin Family foundation of Texas will receive funding up to 4.7 million. The new awards bring the total that the Texas Space Commission has granted since it was established in 2023 to $116 million for 19 projects. In all, there is $34 million remaining for more awards from the Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund, also known as cerf. And you can read more about the Texas Space Commission and all of the other stories I've just mentioned in the show by following the links in the selected Reading section of our show. Notes N2K senior producer Alice Cruz joins us now with more on the stories that we've added in there today for a little extra bonus for you. Alice.
- [08:46]
Alice Cruz
Thanks, Maria. We have three additional links in there today covering China's EVA to add debris shields to Tiangong, NASA's agreement with Argentina for an Artemis 2 CubeSat, and an update on Astrobotic's Lunar Wireless Charger.
- [08:59]
Maria Varmazas
That is all good stuff for us to keep an eye on. And for those of us that are not able to see those links on their podcast app, where else could we find them?
- [09:07]
Alice Cruz
Alice we also include the full show notes on our website. Simply head to space.n2k.com and click on the daily episode title Hey T Minus.
- [09:16]
Maria Varmazas
Crew, Tune in tomorrow for T Minus Deep Space. It's our show for extended interviews, special editions and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. And tomorrow we have Sita Raghavan and Joy Haying talking about cosmic and preparing the future workforce for isam. Check it out while you're enjoying a long holiday weekend both here and in Alice's native uk. It's officially barbecue season in the Northern Hemisphere after all. And speaking of that holiday weekend, a programming note now that we will be taking Monday off from our daily intel briefing in commemoration of Memorial Day in the United States. But don't fret, we have a special edition releasing that same day on the International Rocket Engineering Competition, otherwise known as the irec. You don't want to miss it. Foreign.
- [10:21]
Dave
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- [11:06]
Maria Varmazas
Foreign our partners@nasaspaceflight.com now have the Weekly Space Traffic Report.
- [11:22]
Ryan Caton
I'm Ryan Caton for NSF and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for T Minus Space. We started off the week with a Jute 2e launch on May 17, a methane powered rocket from Chinese company Landspace lifted off from Zhou Chen, carrying six satellites into sun synchronous orbit, the payload of three Earth Observation satellites and three technology demonstration satellites, all developed by Space T for various Chinese universities. This was the second launch of Juche2's enhanced variant. That's where the E comes from. This version features an upgraded second stage that uses a common dome between its two propellant tanks, saving some mass. That same stage also sports a new engine that's capable of relighting in space. But the rocket that flew this week featured some additional upgrades compared to the Juche 2e that launched last November. I guess the name Juche 2e e was passed over one change that is very obvious from the the fairingstallager. What's more, the first stage was outfitted with more powerful engines, adding an additional 12 tons of thrust at liftoff. The mission's first orbit took the rocket over the western United States, where it dumped some fuel. This is a very common procedure to pacify rocket stages, but this time the lighting conditions were just right to create a bright streak clearly visible from the ground. Just a few hours later, an electron took off from Rocket Lab's Mahia spaceport in New Zealand, lifting on May 17 at oh:17 UTC, Electron carried a radar imaging satellite for Japanese company IQPS into low Earth orbit. This was Rocket Lab's third mission for the company, which names its satellite after Japanese deities. The satellite on board this mission was named after the sea God Wadatsumi, so Rocket Lab fittingly named Electron's mission the Sea God Seas. Unfortunately, we also had a launch failure this week coming out of India. On May 18 at 29 past midnight, Universal ISRO's PSLV XL Rocket lit its solid first stage at the Satishtav to launch a radar reconnaissance satellite into sun synchronous orbit, but it never made it that far. The first phases of flight went well, but during the third stage burn, the rocket's telemetry showed that something had gone seriously wrong. According to the Indian Space Research Organisation, the pressure dropped in the third stage solid motor and the agency is now investigating what exactly went wrong. This is the third failure in the PSLV's history, which has flown a total of 63 missions since 1993 and is considered the workhorse by many of the Indian space program. The Incident bro streak of 21 successful launches since the rocket's previous failure in 2017 back in China, we had the launch of G Ceres 1s on May 19th. The rocket was loaded with four Internet of Things communications satellites destined for low Earth orbit. The offshore launch was conducted from the Dongfeng Hung Tiangong barge, which was positioned in the Yellow Sea just off the coast of the city of Zhejiang. Back on dry land, another rocket lifted off from China the following day. A Cheongjuong 7A lit its 6 YF100 engines on May 20 and lifted off from the Wenchang space launch site at 11:50 UT. The payload on this mission was a classified communications satellite destined for geostationary orbit. On May 21, a Falcon 9 took to the skies in Florida to launch another batch of starlinks. The mission added 13 Starlink director cell satellites and 10 V2 mini satellites to the Internet Constellation. The booster for this mission was a Rookie on debut B1095. Though inexperienced, it performed its mission effortlessly. It landed successfully on SpaceX's drone ship. Just read the instructions. Later that day, yet another mission lifted off from China, this time a Lytian one, also known as Kinetica 6 satellites, into sun synchronous orbit. Among these payloads were some commercial Earth observation satellites. The mission was conducted from Zhouchen with T0 at 0405 Universal on May 21. China's busy week of traffic continued in orbit as There was a spacewalk on China's Tiangong Space Station on the 22nd. The extravehicular activity was performed by Chen Dong, who stepped outside of the station for the fourth time in his career, and Chen Zhongri, who performed his very first eva. During the activity, the pair installed a space debris shield. They also inspected and disposed of some equipment, wrapped up their eva after roughly 8 hours at 0849 UTC. Next a Soyuz 2.1B rocket lifted off from the Pulisets Cosmodrome in Russia on May 23rd around 7 o' clock Universal unfortunately, we don't know much more about this classified mission or its payload. Russian official news have only confirmed that a satellite for the Russian Ministry of Defense was launched on this mission, so that's pretty much all we know about the payload. And from Tiangong to the International Space Station, the Dragon on the CRS32 resupply mission undocked from the Harmony Module zenith or space fac port on May 23 at 1605 Universal. The capsule arrived at the station about a month ago, delivering sights, payloads and restocking the astronaut supplies with 1262 tortillas and other food supplies. Dragon's departure was delayed by a day following bad weather in the recovery zone. Splashdown off the coast of California is Now expected for May 25th at 5 minutes and 45/ UTC. If you're watching around the time of publication, keep an eye out as there is supposed to be a Starlink launch out of Vandenberg delivering 27 V2 minis into low earth orbit in Check out our next spaceflight app and website for the latest on this mission. It's the closest we've got to a crystal ball, at least when it comes to launches, and it's completely free online on iOS and on Android. Next week, Rocket Lab is planning to launch another electron mission from Mahia. The mission is titled Full Stream Ahead and the payload will be the second of five black sky generation 3 imaging satellites. We're also expecting the Tienwind 2 mission to launch from China next week. Taiyenwen 2 is an asteroid sample return mission that will attempt to bring back some material from near Earth asteroid Kamo Oyeva. Once it done that, the spacecraft was set to move on to a main belt Comet called 311P Panstars and studied it up close. Astronomers famously good at naming. As always, next week's schedule is packed with starLink missions, with two from the East coast and two from the West Coast. One of the west coast launches will be the first of Starlink Group 17, which is interesting because it will be the first StarLink in over two years to fly pretty much directly south. Finally, it looks like we might also get a starship launch next week. Yes, I know we said that last week, but in our defence we also said it seemed as if things weren't really ready. At the time, SpaceX had already acquired a launch license, but they were still waiting for the FAA to either complete the mishap investigation into Flight 8 or issue a public safety determination. The latter finally came through this Thursday, May 22nd. So from a regulatory perspective, Starship is good to go. The latest hazard notices show the launch is currently planned for no earlier than May 27, with the launch window opening at 23:30 UTC. That's 18:30 local time. So a couple of hours prior to sunset this week SpaceX rolled ship 35 back out to the Massey's test site once again for further pre launch testing and after an initial scrubbed attempt, the company finally performed a spin prime of the vehicle's engines. The vehicle has since rolled back to Mega Bay 2 for pre launch preparations. I'm Ryan Catered for NSF and that's your weekly space Traffic Report. Now back to T minus Space.
- [18:28]
Maria Varmazas
We'll be right back.
- [18:32]
Unknown
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- [19:05]
Maria Varmazas
Welcome back. For a lot of us in the Northern hemisphere, we are entering the time of year where we want to spend a lot of time outside enjoying what's hopefully nice weather, although where I am it's just been cold and rainy. But anyway, if your idea of a great time spent outdoors involves model rockets and from the conversations I've had with a number of our listeners, I know it likely does. A team of writers@space.com including Ian Stokes and Alexander Cox have put together a really comprehensive buyer's guide covering all sorts of model rockets. So if you've got an itchy buy now trigger finger, you really want to take a look at this piece and we will link it in the show notes for you. The Space.com team tested each rocket that they've reviewed and recommended on there and they have a number of categories for you to peruse, including the ones that are best for kids, the best water powered rockets, the best ones for beginners the best Saturn Vs, that kind of thing. 0 surprise that a lot of the top rockets on the list are Estes rockets, but it's not a complete sweep. Most of the rockets on this list top out with a maximum projected altitude of around 300 to 500ft, though some do get closer to about a thousand. So you're not going to need FAA permission for these. Just clear skies and a big open space away from power lines. Both of those are sadly hard for me to manage up here in the windy and crowded Northeast U.S. but for a lot of you in the more expansive, wide open country, all of that should be no stress, really. And I will emphasize that this list has a number of picks for kids. So if you have a budding space nerd in your life, maybe save a few items on this list for when birthday or holiday season shopping time comes around. And when you do, take a moment to just visualize how nice it'll feel when, I don't know, a decade or so from now. That kid is now an adult saying your name with a big smile on their face thanking you during their aerospace thesis defense for being the one who sparked it all. And that's it for T minus for May 23, 2025, brought to you by N2K CyberWire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@spare.n2k.com we'd 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.
- [21:35]
Dave
App.
- [21:35]
Maria Varmazas
You can also always get in touch with us by sending us an email. Thespacen2k.com we are privileged 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 makes it easy for companies to optimize your biggest investment your people. We make you smarter about your teams while making your teams smarter. Learn how@n2k.com N2K 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 Varmazas. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We will see you back on Tuesday.
- [22:34]
Ryan Caton
T minus.
- [22:47]
Dave
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