← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
NASA Union Shake-Up.
00:26:10
An Executive Order excludes NASA from FSLMRS. ASCEND was awarded a NASA mission operations contract at JSC. Maine considers a sea-based spaceport. And more.
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- [00:00]
Maria Varmazes
Foreign you're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:13]
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- [01:58]
Maria Varmazes
Today is September 2nd, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T/T/20 seconds. Amazon Kuiper to become a pilot user of the Traffic Coordination System for space, NASA scientists have developed a new set of tools to monitor plant growth under various conditions through the growing season. The main Space Corporation is in talks with the Spaceport Company to bring a floating launch facility to the state. NASA has awarded Ascend Aerospace and Technology the contract for organizing spaceflight mission operations and systems to provide services at the agency's Johnson Space Center. A US Executive Order excludes NASA from the Federal Labor Management Relations Program. And our guest today is Rohan M. Ganapathi, CEO and CTO at Bellatrix Aerospace. Rohan and I will be talking about the evolution of the private space sector in India and Bellatrix's journey within it. Stay with us after today's headlines. Happy Tuesday everybody. We hope those of you who enjoyed a long weekend had a nice time on that extra day out of the office. So let's dive into the stories making today's headline, shall we? And let's start off in the United States now, which just observed Labor Day and ahead of the national holiday, the US President issued an executive order titled Further Exclusions from the Federal Labor Management Relations Program. And this order excludes a number of agencies and agency subdivisions from collective bargaining representation pursuant to Title VII in the 1978 Civil Service Reform act called the Federal Service Labor Management Relations Statute. So presidents may add to the list by executive order if an agency is, quote, determined to have a primary function of intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work. And I know all of you are asking right now, what on earth has any of this got to do with space? Well, one of the agencies named in this executive order is NASA. So it's worth noting that included in the exclusions were the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Services, which is a part of NOAA that operates the nation's civil weather satellites. 53% of NASA's workforce is in a bargaining unit represented by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers or the American Federation of Government Employees, the latter of which referred to this new EO as quote, another clear example of retaliation against federal employee union members who stand up to the President's quote, anti worker, anti American plan to dismantle the federal government. So why has there been a change in the designation of NASA? Well, according to a White House fact sheet, NASA develops and operates, quote, advanced air and space technologies like satellite communications and propulsion systems that are critical for US national security. And they say that that justifies the designation of the agency as having intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work as its, and I'm quoting here again, primary function. Those that are criticizing this eo though, say that it is clearly related to excluding NASA workers from representation by labor unions. Still, it is not yet known what the long term effects of this move will be. I guess we will just have to watch this space moving on. But staying with the US Space Agency. NASA has awarded Ascend Aerospace and Technology the contract for organizing spaceflight mission operations and systems known as Cosmos to provide services at the agency's Johnson Space center in Houston, Texas. The Cosmos is a single award, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract valued at $1.8 billion that begins its five year base period no earlier than December 1, with two option periods that could extend until 2034. Work performed under the contract will support NASA's Flight Operations Directorate, including the Orion and the Space Launch System programs, the International Space Station, the Commercial crew program and the Artemis. Campaign services include mission control center systems, training systems, mockup environments and training for astronauts, instructors and flight controllers. The Aerodyne Company and Jacobs Technology Company are joint venture partners. Let's head on over to the United States State of Maine now. And for the last several years they've been working to find a location for a spaceport in Maine. But it seems that they have exhausted land based options. So the main space Corporation is now in talks with the spaceport company, looking to the sea for other options. The spaceport company is a Virginia based startup that focuses on mobile floating spaceports and they did record the first rocket launch from US waters in 2023 in the Gulf of Mexico. So Maine is looking to capitalize on its location for launches to polar orbits, but has faced a lot of pushback from residents when exploring coastal launch sites. So let's hope that for their sake, the fishing industry is maybe more open to a floating spaceport idea. NASA scientists have developed a new set of tools to monitor plant growth under various conditions throughout the growing season. The hope is that land managers could use these tools to detect sudden drops in plant productivity and to respond earlier to events like heat stress, droughts and cold snaps. The data informing the tools has come from the Ocean color instrument aboard NASA's plankton aerosol cloud ocean ecosystem satellite known as PACE. NASA launched PACE in February 2024 to assess oceanic and atmospheric health. However, the Ocean Color Instrument captures a much broader range of the light that reflects from plants and collects more data overall. This new data could tell us about plant productivity throughout the seasons from data collected over land, and it is always great to hear of Earth observation instruments with dual use. Amazon Kuiper has been selected as a pilot user of the Traffic Coordination System for Space, otherwise known as Trax. Amazon Kuiper will join companies such as Iridium, OneWeb, SpaceX, Maxar Planet and Intelsat, among others, as a tester of the system through the Office of Space Commerce. TRAX now provides spaceflight safety screening services for operators managing more than 8,000 spacecraft. OSC says it is safeguarding nearly 80% of all active space objects worldwide ahead of the planned January 2026 production release. And that wraps up today's intel briefing for this Tuesday. N2K senior producer Alice Carruth joins us now to let us know where you can find out more about all of today's stories.
- [09:10]
Alice Carruth
Alice thanks Maria. We include links to further reading on all the stories mentioned throughout the show in the Selected Reading section of our show Notes. They can be found on the platform you listen to us on or on our website, space.n2k.com we also include additional stories we think would be of interest to you today. We've included an opinion piece which is related to the last story on Tracks, which argues why making cuts to the space tracking industry would be foolish.
- [09:36]
Maria Varmazes
Absolutely. Thank you for that. Hey T minus crew, if you are just joining us, be sure to Follow T minus Space daily in your favorite podcast app. Also, if you could do us a favor, share the intel with your friends and co workers. A growing audience is the most important thing for us and we would love your help as part of the T minus crew. So if you find T minus useful, please share our show so other professionals like you can find us. Thank you so much. It means a lot to me.
- [10:26]
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- [11:12]
Maria Varmazes
No surprise here to anyone who listens to T minus regularly that India has a very fast growing commercial space industry and one of the companies that we've reported on a lot on this show is Bellatrix Aerospace. And I recently got to speak to Rohan M. Ganapathy who is the CEO and CTO at Bellatrix Aerospace.
- [11:34]
Rohan M. Ganapathi
My name is Rohan, one of the co founders of Bellatrix Aerospace. We are an Indian aerospace company, 13 years in existence, so we build mainly propulsion systems, both electric and chemical for satellites and let's say bigger spaceships in the near future. Our core specialization is in the area of spacecraft propulsion, so the goal is to mainly make the orbital economy as accessible as possible. That's what Bellatrix is. And we didn't name Bellatrix after the Harry Potter character. So that's the question I get asked. So this is after the star in the constellation Orion.
- [12:15]
Maria Varmazes
So yes, I was going to say someone will always ask that question. Admittedly I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan, but I'm more of a star fan. But I appreciate you addressing the question. I'm sure you get all the time. Thank you for that. And you all have had a lot of really interesting and wonderful successes. You all are in the news a lot and I'm just, I'm really thrilled that I get a chance to speak with you because I would love to get your perspective on, I guess, the market as it stands right now and where you all fit in because you were in a very interesting place.
- [12:48]
Rohan M. Ganapathi
Yeah, it's interesting. What's more interesting is let's say 10 years before it was not that well perceived because anything propulsion people take it as Dual use. So there was a lot of restrictions in terms of importing tech and stuff. But now I'm happy to say that space is more globalized. There's more collaboration with partners outside of our country. So we have also opened in the U.S. recently, expanding into the U.S. so you see a lot of real globalization happening. So it's really exciting. At the same time, it's very crowded because there are all kinds of people. Because space is a very trendy buzzword, right? Yes. Unless you burn yourself, like literally burn yourself, you'll not know the real pain it takes to run this. But yeah, but we are positive. Personally, I believe this will. This industry will be one of the biggest employers, let's say 20 years down the line, because it's a beautiful industry where there'll be amalgamation of all specializations coming together, be it electrical engineering, be it mathematics, be it physics, be it arts. Right. Be it music. So this is one industry where everything comes together. So future is good given what you all do.
- [14:08]
Maria Varmazes
And I love that the future is bright because it certainly feels that way given what you all concentrate on specifically with propulsion. And you have a lot of different focuses there. I was taking a peek at your website and also I'm remembering from the stories that we've covered of the amazing things you all are doing. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about green propulsion because I'm very curious about it and I know you all are working on it. So I'd love to hear a bit about your angle on it and what you think of it.
- [14:33]
Rohan M. Ganapathi
Yeah, see, that's a good question. So we realized very early on that one solution doesn't fit for everything. One solution fits for all. Philosophy is something which Bellatrix will not follow. So satellites come in different shape and sizes. They have different propulsion requirements. So it was a conscious decision very early on to work on different verticals which will come together. We wanted to give a hybrid solution. When the distance between A and B is large enough, you need more mileage, use electric propulsion. When you want to do station keeping, attitude control, or you want to do collision avoidance, you need more thrust, so you need chemical propulsion. There. Now coming to chemical propulsion, the obvious answer is to go with Earth storable toxic propellants like hydrazine, etc. But see, in the new space era, the first thing is cost. Even though it's a proven technology, TRL level is 9 and above. But the problem is on Earth, the way you handle this, the way you store the cost associated with these things, are just Crazy. The system, the overall system might be cheaper, but the handling it, the setting up of the infrastructure is expensive. And at the same time, European Union has, through their reach, compliance has led the way to kind of move out of hydrazine. You see, because hydrogen is also used in the pharmaceutical industry. Handling it, throwing it out, it's a, it's a concern for the environment. We are talking about climate change. I didn't know that we are talking about climate change. So we want to be a responsible space company. But in space, people only worry about how things work when it's in orbit. Right. So we also wanted to address the issues which happens here on ground. So green propulsion was an obvious choice. See, green propulsion is a big topic, right? Which propellant you choose, etc. So I'll not go into the details of it. But yes, we did develop a clean blend which is greener to make, gives you better performance than hydrazine, hence it would sell well. At the same time, storability and decomposing. It is also kind of cheap and green. So it was a passionate effort, which we took. But we made sure that the system we build is compatible with hydrazine. If the market doesn't accept green, we always have a fallback option. But the good news is we've been getting a lot of interest for this and that's the good news. Right. So we want to see a green economy as well.
- [17:07]
Maria Varmazes
Absolutely. And the fact that it's compatible is a very smart move as well. Let's move on to. Again, you all are, you specialize, which is a wonderful thing. And I love talking to companies like yours where you all are specialists in your area and this is what you do and what you know, what is it like to be building a company that is specialized like this while also scaling globally? This has got to be a really fascinating intersection of two. Really almost not different, but like interesting pushes and pulls in this context.
- [17:38]
Rohan M. Ganapathi
Yeah. See, it's a very interesting problem to solve. At the end of the day, it's exciting. We want to push ourselves. But when we talk about the investor ecosystem, that's where the problem comes. Because they want to see the so called TAM total addressable market. The higher it is, the better. So when you're specialized, you don't address that. So that's the challenge. But now that people realize the importance of orbital economy, what's happening now the number of satellites going up is higher. So you need solutions not just to propel satellites, you need solutions to deorbit them. You need solutions to avoid collisions, you need Solutions to clear debris. And we are talking about in space manufacturing. You know what limits us taking big stuff to space? It's not the capacity of the rocket, it's basically the volume of these things. A rocket is limited, the payload fairing is limited by the volume. So if you really want to build big structures in space through Artemis Accords Moon is the next place we are going. Not just for science, but basically for mining. Protect the earth. Don't mine on the earth, but you have resources there. Go there. But the problem is like this gold is available underneath the ocean. Why don't you mine? The cost of mining is more than the value value of gold. It doesn't make sense. Why don't you mine on the moon? Let's forget asteroids and stuff, let's stick to the moon.
- [18:59]
Maria Varmazes
Yeah, we're not there yet. Yes, right, yes, that's fair.
- [19:03]
Rohan M. Ganapathi
It's just expensive. So for example, one of our engines just uses water as a propellant. So water is available on the surface of the moon. So you can do in situ resource utilization. So you need to really build this cargo ships kind of structures in space. So that's where we're talking about orbital economy. Right. So propulsion makes sense. So now what we do is we package propulsion into a bigger offering. Right. So that's what excites investors. At the same time there's a proper value proposition. So you're not selling the story which at the end doesn't fructify. So so here you see clear path. So it's an, as I said, it's an interesting problem to solve. But not every day is a happy day. But, but being specialized, we stick to it. Right?
- [19:51]
Maria Varmazes
Given everything we've seen in in space mobility in the last few years especially those mission types have really started to pick up in terms of capabilities that we're seeing build. I'm curious what you all are anticipating in in space mobility and what you see as the future there.
- [20:08]
Rohan M. Ganapathi
Okay, that's an interesting question. See coming from India, we were always little risk hours us, you take more risks than us. So here our solution was to ensure the base product is ready and it should have multiple solutions on top of it. So if said Bellatrix was in the US we would just focus on one side of it. But here we built foundation in such a way which would allow us to adapt to multiple solutions. And we knew this is where the market is headed. The only thing is globally the business case is something say 10 years before wouldn't make sense. So now because of the increase in launches, we are having primarily led by SpaceX. This is trying to make monetary sense. So our decision was that keep the solution ready when the market is right. You should not lose the first mode advantage.
- [21:10]
Maria Varmazes
Right, right.
- [21:11]
Rohan M. Ganapathi
That's how we see and but yeah, as I mentioned before, we have a lot of solutions. For example, if you want to build something in space, etc. Etc. We have to just tailor it to meet that. So the future is bright there. But let's see.
- [21:39]
Maria Varmazes
We'll be right back.
- [21:47]
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- [22:23]
Maria Varmazes
Welcome back. Because of the cosmic scale of, well, the cosmos, when we talk about things that are space related, our very small human sense of scale gets completely thrown off an event happening soon. Like Betelgeuse going supernova. Well, soon could be as soon as the next 100 years nearby. Well, just a few light years away, you know, no big deal. So when we hear a headline like there's going to be an asteroid passing close by Earth, I don't know about you, but I instinctively think, okay, close by what measure? Like just a few planets away close? Well, how does roughly half the distance between the Earth and Moon strike you as close? That is practically tip of the nose space wise. And Wednesday, September 3rd, asteroid 225QD8 will make a flyby of Earth at 57%. The Earth moon distance at 1456 GMT. And for me on the US East coast that is late morning about 10:57am so it's very doubtful that I'd see a blessed thing in my skies. But the Virtual Telescope project has a YouTube stream that starts actually tonight, September 2nd of the very close encounter, as it will be seen by telescopes situated in Manciano, Italy. Obligatory mention here that this asteroid that's passing by to say hello is a mere 17 to 38 meters across. It's really quite small and it is zero risk to us here on Earth, so please don't panic. And speaking of things that I can't see where I am, but maybe you can. Tonight, September 2nd, we could have a better than usual chance of seeing an aurora thanks to a coronal mass ejection that happened over the weekend. This could be a potential G2 strength geomagnetic storm and that's a scale 2 out of 5. So not nearly as strong as the G4 or 5 as what we had in May 2024. But folks in Greenland, Iceland, Canada, Alaska and the northern top of the lower 48 US states get out there tonight and enjoy the Aurora Boreal this evening. And same for folks in southern New Zealand for the Aurora Australis. Hoping for clear skies for all of you and that is T Minus Brought to you by N2K CyberWire what do you think about T Minus Space Daily? Well, we'd love to hear from you. Please take a few moments to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. We're 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 are 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. We'll see you tomorrow.
- [25:49]
Rohan M. Ganapathi
T minus.
- [25:59]
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