C (10:16)

So traditional systems, typically a Whipple shield designed by Fred Whipple started in the late 1940s. That's basically what we use to protect the International Space Station with. It is covered with Whipple shields which are metallic shields, mostly metallic. They have some Kevlar composite, you know, dry fabric in them, but basically you have a standoff shield where it can be 4, 5, 612 inches deep and you have these plates of aluminum gapped by call it 1 to 2 inches. And as that projectile comes in and hits the first layer, you know, spreads out, hits the next layer, spreads out, hits the next layer, ultimately stopping the projectile before it gets, you know, into damaging the iss. Well, that's great because you've protected the iss, but during that impact, we create additional debris through that impact. And from the videos we've seen in our own testing, more mass is actually ejected from that metallic plate than the original projectile coming in to hit it.

D (11:20)

So if I'm understanding correctly. So it's actually creating more debris upon impact? Essentially, yes.

C (11:27)

It actually creates more debris than the original impact. So you can see this video. On the left side we have space armor. On the right side is an aluminum monolithic block. This is a 3 millimeter projectile traveling at 7.2 kilometers per second, basically orbital velocity, what we see in LEO.

A (11:46)

Yep.

C (11:46)

And a million frames per second because these are moving really fast. And so what you'll notice is on the left side you see some gas and particulate coming out, but there's really no harmful debris, essentially because there's no metal in our shielding. It's an all composite shielding solution. On the right side is a monolithic block of aluminum. And that is the rated thickness by NASA to stop the projectile, which it does actually stop the projectile. But in the video you'll see there's additional debris coming out of the backside. Yeah, that is because the energy shock wave is actually delaminating the aluminum, pushing that aluminum back towards whatever the spacecraft or thing that it was originally protecting from. So this video alone shows you there is a real potential snowball effect, the Kessler Syndrome, for creating lots of debris in space. Unintentionally.

D (12:39)

That's, that's wild. I had never even considered that angle, like secondary debris being generated by debris impact.

A (12:46)

My goodness.

D (12:47)

So please tell me a bit about what you all are making, because, I mean, it sounds really interesting.

C (12:53)

Sure. So it's called Space Armor. We were having fun one night and we're like, wonder if the website spacearmor.com is available. We actually bought the website spacearmor.com that's.

D (13:01)

Often how it works, isn't it? Is the URL available?

A (13:04)

Yes.

D (13:04)

Get it.

C (13:05)

So cool. So there was an SBIR topic that the United States Space Force put out through its SBIR program. And they said, we would like to see a new type of debris shield made. And so we applied for it. We're a composite company and we said, well, let's see if we can figure this out. And so ultimately, through a few different iterations, we found an optimized layout for different composite material. Sets that can stop these projectiles moving at, you know, Mach 21, 17,000 miles an hour. And we want to productize these so our customers can put them really anywhere they need to without really doing any additional engineering. And so one way we are approaching and have seen some traction in, we're building these in hexagon shaped tiles. So we have them in 6 inch and 12 inch tiles. So the hexagon allows you to, like, you know, basically put each tile next to another one, covering the area that you really want to without changing much. On the engineering side, you literally can just use the adhesive to apply it to the outside of the spacecraft. And we have two versions of the protection. We have a radio frequency permeable version and a RF radio frequency blocking version. So to my knowledge, this is actually the very first radome ever built for space. There has been no debris protection historically that stopped debris and allowed radio frequency through it. And so one version of Space Armor can allow for that RF transmissive capability, which is really important because communications, your comm system, is arguably the most important piece of the spacecraft because without comms, you're dead in the water, right?

D (14:46)

Yeah.

C (14:47)

So you have the RF transmission and RF blocking, and then you have the light and max version. The light is 3 millimeter, and the max is 12.5 millimeter. The light has gone through thermal, thermal, vacuum chamber, as well as vibration testing and also final impact. So we are finishing flight qualification now and should be through it in a few weeks. And I'll be happy to show you the one that's just got through all three of those.

D (15:12)

Oh, this is cool. So for our folks who are audio only, he's holding up a tile on, like on an aluminum plate, I presume. Looks like a vibration plate.

C (15:21)

Yeah. So the. The aluminum plate was needed to mount it for vibration testing, but it has been through vibration thermal, you know, T vac. And then you see the hole here. Right.

D (15:30)

So there's a big impact hole right on it. Yeah.

C (15:33)

So this was the impact and then the backside, there's nothing, you know, nothing.

A (15:36)

It's clean.

C (15:37)

So that's. That's typically what it will look like going on to a spacecraft.

D (15:41)

That look. That is awesome. Thank you for the props. Really appreciate that.

C (15:44)

Sure.

D (15:45)

And I'm curious. So you mentioned that there's some exciting things coming up. I imagine 2026 might be a busy.

A (15:51)

Year for you all.

C (15:52)

Yes, we have a very busy year. We have our first flight not with space armor, but actually our solar array product, A small demo version of that is Flying up on, I think it's transporter 16 push back to March, but it looks like March launch date. But with Space Armor we have two customers that have signed up to fly it on the same launch in October. I think that's Transporter 17, something like that. But flying in October of 2026, two different customers, same launch. Really excited to see Space Armor go up and get that flight heritage that we've been working towards through the, you know, the siver process. And then we got a tactical funding increase to get it through flight qualification and now finally in the hands of some real world customers. So we're excited about that.

D (16:35)

That is really exciting. Congratulations on all of that. That is, those are all huge milestones to have very close on, on the space scale. That's like practically tomorrow.

C (16:43)

So that's.

D (16:46)

And I'm also curious, terrestrial applications of what you all are building, I imagine I can, I can think of quite a few, but I'm curious what you all think.

C (16:55)

So I'm not sure if you've been keeping up in the news lately, but directed energy has been one of the topics. And so we actually said what would happen if we hit this with directed energy. Apparently it holds up really well. So there's not just space directed energy protection. So in space you have, you know, obviously debris protection and there's some directed energy protection offered as well with space armor. But terrestrially, you know, because we can make this a radome, being able to protect your comms terrestrially from some sort of directed energy, you know, system is very valid. Yeah, right. Could come in handy. And then when you look at things that travel terrestrially the same speed as what we see in LEO or close to it, we have a thought and it is our idea that this, this shield should actually protect from small explosives. So think hand grenades, C4s, that kind of small explosive where the projectiles are coming out around 10 kilometers per second. So two and a half kilometers faster than what we're testing in space. But the performance curve of this shield should actually work. So we tbd, but we do believe it will also be applicable terrestrially across all domains. So whether that's maritime, ground based systems, air based systems, anything that you want to protect from small explosives or directed energy and just comms in general, this, the market ironically for space armor could be drastically bigger on Earth than it could be in space.

D (18:27)

Dual use, it's the way, it's the way to go, but it makes a lot of sense. Also we off it so often that that story plays out that way.

A (18:34)

And it just, it's logical.

D (18:36)

It just is.

A (18:37)

Yeah.

C (18:38)

Well, and another, you know, smaller opportunity, but I think nearly the most important, we are looking at applications to put hard armor into astronaut suits. So an astronaut does a spacewalk. Extremely dangerous.

D (18:53)

Yes.

C (18:53)

And so we would love the ability to put this into astronaut suits and help better protect our astronauts.

D (18:59)

Yeah. I mean, thinking about it, when we're talking about shielding, you know, spacecraft or space stations, you know, when, when the astronauts do those EVAs, they are, as you said, extremely vulnerable. And I do wonder about what are we doing to help them out too. So there you go.

C (19:14)

You and I were chatting earlier. Commander Chris Hadfield is a good friend and advisor. And I said, I said, chris, what is, you know, what is debris? How often is the ISS getting hit? And he said, it sounds like rain on its end roof. Which would, which would terrify me if I'm doing a spacewalk. Right. Like that is really terrifying.

D (19:33)

Rain on a tin roof. I don't.

A (19:36)

That is.

D (19:37)

That is terrifying to hear. Well, I mean, I knew they were brave as heck, but it's probably not.

C (19:43)

Like, you know, every one or two seconds. But it does get hit quite often, I'm sure. I mean, you can Google the pictures. It's littered with impact.

A (19:50)

Oh yeah, they get peppered.

D (19:51)

It's just. That's crazy.

A (19:53)

Wow.

D (19:54)

Well, I'm very glad that people are working on solutions for this, as I said, in many different directions. And it's just really cool to hear.

A (20:00)

About what you all are building. Trevor, is there anything else you wanted.

D (20:03)

To add to today's chat before we close out?

C (20:06)

Yeah, we are updating our website to offer some sort of quote now options, different levels for space armor and RF or non, non RF blocking and that sort of thing. So atomic6-atomic-6.com is our website and I live on LinkedIn so if anybody wants to reach out on LinkedIn, I'm always on there and happy to answer any questions and really just excited about the future of the company with, you know, launching our solar array product in March of next year and then Space Armor going up with two customers on the same launch in October. So very excited.

A (20:52)

We'll be right back.

E (20:57)

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move being financially savv. Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm is there prices are based on rating plans that Vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state.

A (21:30)

Welcome back. The way we talk about the Moon, sometimes it just kind of gets a bad rap, doesn't it? It's inhospitable to life, has really irregular gravity, no atmosphere, no magnetosphere, covered in really clingy, messy regolith that just causes problems wherever it gets. Oh, and it smells bad too. But maybe we should consider that the Moon's just doing her darn best considering who she orbits. We're kind of a mess sometimes. If you think of Earth kind of like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoons, raising a big old dust cloud wherever we go. And the Moon's just kind of everybody else in those cartoons wheezing in our wake. Is that an exaggeration of reality? Yeah, absolutely. But is it completely far fetched? Not entirely. There is new research from the University of Rochester that suggests that Earth's magnetic field has been quietly funneling particles from our atmosphere onto the Moon for billions of years. So instead of acting purely as our protective shield against all the cosmic nasties, Earth's magnetic field has also been guiding ions knocked loose by the solar wind along field lines that, believe it or not, stretch all the way to the lunar surface. So yeah, that pig pen dust cloud doesn't sound so silly now, does it? The U. Rochester researchers studied computer simulations and Apollo era soil samples from the Moon and found that the ionic transfer worked best with a strong magnetic field. So this dust cloud comes from cosmically modern Earth and not our pre magnetosphere past. Which also could help explain why lunar soil contains unexpectedly high levels of volatiles like nitrogen and water, which are materials that the solar wind alone cannot account for. Indeed, perhaps over the eons our very own Earth's been sending over some materials to the Moon in a process called, logically, atmospheric escape. All this means that the Moon may be a long term chemical record of Earth's atmosphere, if you can believe it, serving as kind of a geological backup drive for our planet's climate and magnetic history. And for future lunar explorers. Maybe the Moon could offer more usable resources than we originally expected, potentially easing the logistics of long term human presence. Just a weeee bit. All thanks to our Earth's pig pen dust cloud like magnetosphere. And that's T minus. Brought to you by N2K CyberWire 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 the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to 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 Senior Producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our Executive Producer is Jennifer Ivan. Peter Kilby is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thank you for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

C (25:34)

T.