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Today is November 5, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazas and this is T minus.

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T minus 20 seconds to Los T Drift.

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ESA confirms the successful launch and deployment of the Sentinel 1D satellite via Seals SQ wise key and the Swiss Armed Forces Advance Quantum secure satellite communications. China's Shenzhou 20 return mission is delayed after a suspected space debris impact. US President Trump renominates Jared Isaacman to lead NASA Google launches Project Suncatcher for space based AI infrastructure structure Happy Wednesday everybody. Thank you for joining me. A quick note. We are now in our longest ever official US government shutdown 36 days shutdown and counting. Well then, let's get on with our daily briefing, shall we? In a blog post today, Google Research is detailing a new research initiative that they are calling Project suncatcher, the blueprints for a constellation of solar powered satellites carrying Tensor processing units, or TPUs, to operate as space based AI data centers. The design envisions tightly clustered satellite formations connected via free space optical links capable of terabits per second bandwidth, operating in nearly continuous sunlight to dramatically reduce reliance on terrestrial infrastructure and, in Google's words, to scale machine learning compute in space. These plans are preliminary and the research does note that there are some challenges they still need to overcome, including making sure that any TPUs on orbit are properly radiation hardened and other familiar challenges like thermal management and good old orbital mechanics. Also notable, Google says that they expect to build out their constellation once launch costs are under $200 per kilogram by the mid-2030s. And reading between the lines, that is likely when SpaceX's Starship is fully operational. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, their next key Milestone is early 2027, when Google says they will launch two prototype satellites in partnership with Earth observation firm Planet. According to Google, this 2027 prototype mission will test how our models and TPU hardware operate in space and validate the use of optical intersatellite links for distributed ML tasks. It's always very interesting to see advances in orbital data centers. And like many of you, I'm sure we will be watching how Project Suncatcher progresses with There's a new chapter in the Will they, won't they Story of Jared Isaacman and NASA Now US President Donald Trump has renominated the billionaire entrepreneur, private astronaut and ally of Elon Musk, Jared Isaacman to become administrator of NASA after withdrawing his initial nomination just this past May. Trump's withdrawal of Isaacman's nomination followed a rather notable tiff, shall we say, between Trump and Isaacman's main man, Musk. Isaacman's renomination now comes at a moment of strategic transition. Transition for the US Space Agency, which, as we have covered extensively here on T minus is facing massive budget cuts, workforce reductions and project delays. As before, Isaacman must now await Senate confirmation in a process that the administration hopes to expedite. A process that, by the way, can still happen even during a government shutdown. In the meantime, Capitol Hill scuttlebutt is that acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy is quite keen to keep his post and become not so interim. Undoubtedly, we will see how this all plays out in the coming weeks. China's crewed spacecraft, the Shenzhou 20, docked at Tiangong Space Station since April 24, has unfortunately had its return to Earth postponed after detecting possible damage from a small piece of orbital debris. The China Manned Space Agency issued a statement that a quote, impact analysis and risk assessment are currently underway and no new landing date has yet been provided. The extent of any damage is not public at this time, nor is it known when exactly the Shenzhou 20 was impacted by debris. That said, if the crew cannot return via the Shenzhou 20, the 21 just docked at Tiangong last week and can be used as a backup option. This is the first time a return trip from Tiangong has been delayed specifically by space debris impact. Swiss semiconductor company Seals SQ and its parent company Wise Key, which specializes in cybersecurity, AI and IoT, have updated their multi year collaboration with the Swiss Armed Forces to improve the security of satellite communication, specifically to use post quantum end to end encrypted satellite communications. The partnership was initiated in 2022 and will now integrate Steelsq's post quantum semiconductors and Wise Key's Swiss root of trust to secure satellite to ground and intersatellite links. According to the announcement, the work supports Switzerland's sovereign space and cyber defense goals and addresses vulnerabilities in conventional satellite backhaul systems. And in their announcement they specifically cited the recent bombshell research by the University of Maryland and University of California, San Diego researchers about sensitive military and national security data being sent via satellite completely unencrypted and easily eavesdropped. And by the way, we covered that as our top story on our October 14, 2025 show link is in the Show Notes if you need a refresher. All that said, deployment on these capabilities is still pending following formal procurement procedures by the Swiss government and Parliament and yesterday ESA marked the successful launch and deployment of its latest satellite for the Copernicus Earth observation constellation, the Sentinel 1D. The satellite launched via an Arianespace Ariane 6 in Kourou, French Guiana on Tuesday evening, 6:02pm local time and went off without any problems with the Sentinel 1D inserted into its target orbit 34 minutes after launch. The Sentinel 1D is a C band synthetic aperture radar satellite providing high res images of Earth at all times and in all weather conditions and this launch formally completes the Sentinel 1 mission for ESA. Once 1D is commissioned, it will replace the Sentinel 1A, which has been in service for 11 long years and is well past its expected lifetime. And for those of us on the east coast of North America, that swirly pattern in the sky last night while walking your dog was indeed the Aryan 6 just doing its thing. So please inform your local Facebook groups because if they were anything like mine, people were freaking out. And in a launch news footnote, as of the time of this recording, we are awaiting the latest Rocket Lab Electron launch from New Zealand with the mission the Nation God Navigates. This will be Rocket Lab's sixth launch for the Japanese satellite manufacturer and operator IQPS for their planned 36 satellite SAR constellation. This mission specifically will deploy the QPS SAR 14 satellite, nicknamed Yachihoko 1 for the Japanese God of nation building. And in case you were wondering about that interesting mission name, I know I was. And that is our intel briefing for you today, my friends. It was a packed Wednesday to be sure, and we have links in the Show Notes for you to all of the stories that I've mentioned for you today. In case you'd like to point out pour over Google's Project Suncatcher Research or listen to our prior episode about satellite eavesdropping related to today's announcement from Switzerland. Good stuff, right? Show Notes are in your podcast app as well as at our official website, which is space.n2k.com all you need to do is click on today's episode to see the show notes and off you go. Hi T minus crew in case you're you didn't know, we post links to every episode of T Minus Space Daily along with the major headlines on our LinkedIn page. Just look for N2K T Space Daily on LinkedIn and click Follow to get our episodes and headlines directly in your feed every weekday and Saturday. And by the way, we are just a few folks short of hitting 3500 followers on LinkedIn and and we would love your help to get to that big milestone. After all, a lot of us are spending quite a bit of time on LinkedIn nowadays and surely a daily Space intel briefing from us would be a nice break from, I don't know, posts about how insert tedious outrage bait of the day relates to B2B sales. Right? Right. And 2K T space daily on LinkedIn. Just tap that follow button and maybe you'll be our lucky number 3500. Oh, and thanks. We'll be right back.