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Foreign you're listening to the N2K space network.
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Today is October 7th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T minus T minus 20 seconds. The Planetary Soc urges Capitol Hill to save NASA science in its 2025 day of action. I Space Triples down on International Lunar Business the FCC declares its Space Month to fast track US Satellite reforms Europe's satellite mega merger hits a snag Italy to open one of Europe's largest satell and today we have the second part of my chat with Torsten Kreenig from SpaceWatch Global about world Space Business Week in Paris. Thorsten will be sharing his insights into trends in Earth observation in Europe and his reaction to Germany's spending plan on space based defense. Stick around for more on that later in the show.
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Thank you for joining me on this Tuesday. Let's get into it. First up, let's check in on the space industry in Europe. TeleSalinia Space and Italy's Space Agency say that they are opening a 100 million euro satellite production hub outside of Rome before the year's end. The 21,000 square meter facility is being built with EU recovery funds and and will produce up to 100 satellites a year to support both civil and defense missions. Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani says the goal is to become global players in the satellite market. The new site will also anchor Italy's upcoming low orbit dual use constellation. All of this with the goal of reinforcing Europe's ambitions to match, if not one day perhaps surpass US and Chinese industrial capacity in next generation space infrastructure. And speaking of European aerospace giants, ongoing talks among Airbus, Thales and Leonardo to create a unified European satellite powerhouse have apparently hit some delays. According to a new report from Reuters, the companies have been working towards a framework to merge telesalineia Space, Telespasio and Airbus Space Systems. However, negotiations recently have stalled over how work will be divided among the partners. Leaders say that a deal could still be weeks away, and this mega merger would reshape Europe's manufacturing base for space systems, to put it mildly. We'll keep an eye on how things proceed and of course, keep you posted. Let's turn our attention to Japan now. And Japan's ISPACE dropped a whole bunch of news yesterday, a bit more than we can honestly cover in one show. So what we're going to do is combine three standout items for you now regarding the expansion of the company's role in lunar exploration, specifically, first in Japan, ISPACE will co develop a lunar water sensing satellite under the government's Space Strategy Fund. In Taiwan, ISPACE has been selected to carry the Taiwan Space Agency's magnetometer and ultraviolet telescope Aboard ispace mission four, launching in 2028, which we did talk about in yesterday's show, by the way. And regarding Europe, ISPACE Luxembourg has been tasked to deliver NASA's MSOLO instrument to the lunar surface on Mission 3 as part of Magna Petra's Helium 3 Reconnaissance Program. ISpace CEO Takeshi Hakamada calls the work, quote, pioneering the forefront of Japan's space technology as ISPACE evolves into a global lunar logistics provider. Lots of interesting developments from ISPACE recently. And yeah, it continues to be quiet in the United States due to the ongoing US Government shutdown, but it's not exactly silent. A Space News Exclusive news item today details some statements that FCC Chair Brendan Carr made at an Apex Space event yesterday in California. Carr started his remarks by saying that he's calling October Space Month at the fcc. And he also unveiled two proposals that the FCC will apparently soon vote on and in order to overhaul satellite regulation. And the first proposal he outlined would replace bespoke approvals with what Carr called an assembly line for straightforward satellite and ground station applications. And the second proposal would update siting rules for Earth stations in upper microwave bands to open more spectrum for use at the event. Carr said, we'll replace a default to no at the agency with a default to yes framework. And yep, despite the ongoing US Government shutdown, are you sick of me talking about that? Yet yesterday the Planetary Society joined members of Congress and hundreds of advocates at the Capitol to defend NASA and NSF's science budgets. The timing admittedly wasn't great, but what can you do? This day was planned well before the shutdown was even a twinkle in Congress's eye. In any case, the group warned that the proposed 47% cut to NASA's Science Mission Directorate would amount to an extinction level event for exploration. And here is some Audio from everyone's favorite science guy and Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye from the press conference.