← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
Redwire to design a spacecraft for Mars.
00:24:51
ESA selects Redwire to design a new Mars spacecraft. USSF selects BAE Systems for $151M FORGE contract. AST SpaceMobile releases financial updates. And more.
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Transcript25 lines
- [00:02]
Maria Varmazas
You're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:10]
Alice Carruth
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- [00:54]
Maria Varmazas
Today is March 4th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazas and this is T min T minus 20 seconds to Los Speed Reservoir I space sets June 6th for Mission 2's landing date on the Moon Rocket Lab did launch a dedicated electron mission for Japan's IQPS on March 10th. AST Space Mobile releases Q4 and 2024 financial results US Space Force selects BAE Systems for $151 million forge contract ESA selects red wire to design a new Mars Spacecra.
- [02:02]
Gareth Rogers
Foreign.
- [02:08]
Maria Varmazas
And our guest today is Gareth Rogers, CEO at Farnborough International. And Gareth spoke to N2K senior producer Alice Carus about the upcoming Farnborough International Space show, so stick around to hear more on that. Foreign let's get into it, shall we? Redwire has been awarded a study contract by the European Space Agency to conceptualize a spacecraft platform that could be delivered to Mars as part of the ESA Lightship Initiative. Redwire's Belgian subsidiary, Redwire Space NV has been awarded one of four independent parallel industry studies to to define the parameters for this interplanetary spacecraft. The consortium seeks to evaluate viable smallsat platform solutions for future missions to Mars, which shall be carried as passengers onboard Lightship. And for its part, Lightship will be an electric propulsive tug that can carry passenger spacecraft to Mars and also offers navigation and comms services. Redwire's solution is built around an adapted version of its small satellite platform called Hammerhead and its proven avionics capabilities, which launched Most recently on ESA's HERA mission. No further details were shared about the contract value or on the timeline for delivery of the designs. BAE Systems has received a $151 million contract from the US Space Force's Space Systems Command to further develop the future operationally resilient ground evolution, also known as Forge Command and Control Ground System. BAE Systems will receive the funding to build upon critical milestones achieved in phase one of the Forge C2 prototyping effort to deliver a prototype ready for SSC's next generation overhead Persistent Infrared system. The Space Force says the contract aims to enhance the country's ground missile warning and tracking capabilities by developing a prototype designed for the next generation Overhead Persistent Infrared or Next Gen OPIR system. AST Space Mobile has released its Q4 and 2024 financial results. The Spacecom's company has had a successful 12 months. Abel Avellin, founder, chairman and CEO of AST Space Mobile, shared that the company advanced our customer ecosystem, formalized definitive commercial agreements and expanded our US government capabilities. AST's first Bluebird satellites are fully operational in low Earth orbit, with the production of a further 40 bluebirds currently underway in their Midland, Texas headquarters. AST reported nearly $1 billion yes, with a B in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash as of the end of 2024. Now let's head on over to New Zealand and Rocket Lab has announced a launch window for the first of eight planned dedicated electron missions for its Japanese customer, the Institute for Kyushu Pioneers of Space, also known as iqps. The mission, named the Lightning God Reigns, will launch from Rocket Lab's private orbital launch site in New Zealand during a launch window that opens on March 10. The mission will launch a single synthetic Aperture radar imaging satellite to a 575 kilometer circular Earth orbit for IQPS, called QPS SAR9. The spacecraft will join IQPS's growing Earth imaging constellation that delivers high resolution monitoring from specific locations every 10 minutes and going to Japan now. And ISPACE has announced a landing date in time for the Hakuto R Venture Moon mission to Resilience Lunar Lander. The Japanese commercial space company is aiming to touch down on the lunar surface at the Mare Frigoris. The spacecraft was launched in January on the same launch as Firefly's Blue Ghost. But Ispace says should conditions change, there are three alternative landing sites that are being considered with different landing dates and times for each. A decision about landing will be made in advance, but the window for landing is open from June 6th through June 8th, 2025. And that concludes our top five intel briefing items for you today. Alice has some updates on where you can find some more space news today.
- [06:38]
Liz Stokes
Alice thanks, Maria. We've included three additional stories for you today in the Selected Readings section of our show notes one on Russia's latest Soyuz launch, another updating the launch schedule for Spherex and Punch, and a third on NOAA terminating Space Advisory committees.
- [06:53]
Maria Varmazas
And the links to those stories can be found in addition to our show notes over at space.n2k.com hey t minus Crew, if you are just joining us, hi and welcome and be sure to follow T minus Space daily in your favorite podcast app. Also, please do us a favor. Share the intel with your friends and co workers. Here's a little challenge for you. By Friday, please show three friends or co workers this podcast. 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 so other professionals like you can find the show. Thank you so much for your support. It means a lot to me.
- [07:35]
Liz Stokes
Foreign.
- [07:43]
Alice Carruth
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- [08:26]
Maria Varmazas
Our guest today is Gareth Rogers, CEO at Farnborough International. Gareth spoke with N2K senior producer Alice Carruth about the upcoming Farnborough International Space Show. Alice started by asking Gareth where the idea of the space show came from.
- [08:44]
Gareth Rogers
As part of the overall air show there was always a space zone. It's a relatively large space zone within there. And what became clear is that as space becomes a much more important area of sort of the aerospace defense domain, it became clear that actually there was a need for a spaceshow within there in terms of pioneering that commercial space age advancing space domain. And also in terms of really offering a platform that was outside of the air show. Because actually the air show is buying and selling airplanes, it's buying and selling military equipment. Space can not be as it's not as prominent as it needs to be. And actually it was like, well actually it needs its own stage.
- [09:36]
Liz Stokes
So tell us a bit about what is going to happen this year, cause it's coming up really quickly in March. What can people expect to come to see the Farnborough International Space show?
- [09:44]
Gareth Rogers
So it's held 19th, 20th of March at the Farnborough International Conference and Exhibition center. It's the UK's largest space event in 2025. It's about connecting the entire space ecosystem across the industry. Many of the sort of events tend to be just focused solely on sort of upstream in the space market rather than Sort of upstream and downstream as well, but it's across industry, government, defense, academia, but on a global scale as well. So I think we've got several thousand coming to the event, over 1200 organizations from 50 different countries. And it's about making space accessible for all professionals within the global industry. You know, it's completely free to attend. It's got two full days of conferences from industry leaders and also, you know, access to the exhibition hall and many, many businesses from and exhibitors from around the world of space.
- [10:45]
Liz Stokes
Now my understanding is you've also got a bit of a parallel event going on at the same time as the Farnborough International Space show. It's the 40th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of environment. Can you tell us a little bit about how that work and what it is that people can do and see at both of these different events and how they're running parallel together?
- [11:03]
Gareth Rogers
So in terms of international supposed remote sensor environment are a lot easier to call it isrse. But having said that, our team call it i40 because it's even easier. That is very much an academic led conference from space agencies and academia around the world about remote sensing around observation space and it's about what are the next steps within that, but all related to environment as well. So what are the next steps in technology? But that's backed by the likes of NASA, noaa, dlr, UK Space Agency. We have Lord Willett speaking on day one, who's the chairman of the UK Space Agency. And it really is about when we talked about that whole ecosystem and how the two shows fit. This Farnborough Space show is a trade exhibition with a usual sort of trade conference and some wonderful speakers within there. But this is about, well actually how do we link industry with academia and how do we link it with the next steps of where Earth observation and remote sensing is looking to go? Because ultimately that will be the technologies that are being played out in the next 10 to 15 years.
- [12:27]
Liz Stokes
Yeah, absolutely. What would you say to an international audience of why they should be coming to the UK to learn about the space industry, but also why they should be thinking about the UK as a launch opportunity and possibly a place to manufacture and develop as well?
- [12:41]
Gareth Rogers
No, it's a great question. It's a great question. So I think I'd probably say two or three things. Firstly, space is very linked to aerospace and of course, you know, the UK has a great heritage in aerospace and obviously from a Farnborough perspective, you know, it's the birthplace of British aviation. So you know, there's a clear link there. But in terms of the UK space sector, it's worth around 19 billion. I think it was 18.9 if I'm being precise at the last count. But interestingly, 34% of the UK space industry comes from exports. It is an international industry and it takes a leadership within the European space market. Outside of that massive US space market. The UK is one of the leaders and is one of the key countries certainly within the European Space Agency banner. And we like to show that the leadership that the UK can offer to the world and from our side, I think it's 18% of the economy already depends on space derived services in the uk, which comes from information from satellites. So it's a fundamental part of our overall economy as it is anyway at the moment. And there's 50,000 people employed, it's high value jobs, highly skilled workforce, all of those things that you would expect to see from an aerospace space related sector. And of course prestigious universities, Cambridge, Oxford, ucl, all of those sort of places. Southampton and University of Sydney and Guildford as well, great places where the space sector is advancing on a regular basis and actually doing a lot of global work already.
- [14:31]
Liz Stokes
Now I've noticed when I was scrolling through your website that you have a government hub section as part of the conference. Could you tell me a little about the UK government hub and how it is you're hoping it will work?
- [14:42]
Gareth Rogers
So what we felt, and we've done this on other shows at the Farnbraer show on a bigger scale, but it was, we invite UK government to come and take part in the show. But actually why don't we provide them a platform? Why don't we provide them with an opportunity and a place for them to meet, to show off what they do, for them to come and integrate and actually speak to industry, speak to academia, speak to the defense world. And I think that's really, really important because it's very, very easy to just parade government around that shows and that can be done. But actually if they get into the nuts and bolts, sort of lift the hood on the industry, then there becomes more benefit. And also because we are a global show, it's not just about the uk, it's how do you do business with the uk, how does the UK help you do business abroad? You know, and that's what it's there for. It's just a, it's probably, if you put it into one sentence, a physical manifestation of the UK government. But at the show, at a trade show, and we launched it for the first time at the Farnborough International Air Show 2024 and it was a roaring success. So it's a great piece and the government really appreciate it.
- [16:10]
Liz Stokes
What a great opportunity for people there. What else was it you'd like our audience to know about the FISS conference that's coming up. You know, what is the big key pitch you'd say for this year?
- [16:21]
Gareth Rogers
So I will split that into two. I'll talk about the exhibitors and then I'll talk about the actual conference program as well. Because there are two great aspects to it all sort of wrapped around that, you know, the great convening power that Farnborough's always been able to exhibit. So you know we have sort of 80, 90 exhibitors and that's actually growing, you know, the likes of, you know, the major global companies. Babcock, Rolls Royce, Firesat, Lockheed Martin from the US L3Harris from the Keep, see Global Spaceport Alliance Space South Central Magdrive. We have Commonwealth Space Cluster which obviously have a big place in the UK and many, many more of that SME. But you've got the whole piece and alongside that is our business connections Exchange because it's about putting buy side and sell side together as well as then the ability to speak to government. So that kind of sits within the exhibition piece and doing business. But of course then there's the ability to learn and thought leadership which is really important from outside as well. We're going to have more than 180 experts, space agencies, government officials, industry leaders confirmed to speak at both the Farnborough International space show and i40. That's one hell of a conference program. Speakers from rolls Royce, Taluselenia, NOAA out in the U.S. babcock, ESA, UK Space Agency. We even got the Egyptian Space Agency speaking amongst many, many others. And you know, I'd encourage people to go and look at the programs and come along to it because there really is going to be some great insight and some great thought leadership piece. The team have pulled together a fantastic program across the two events from a conference side. And to me that's, you know, that's really where the success of the show will be in those two areas. I mean ultimately it's about can you do business and can you teach things to people and help people with their business as they, as they attend the show.
- [18:43]
Maria Varmazas
We'll be right back.
- [18:49]
Alice Carruth
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- [20:09]
Maria Varmazas
Welcome back. It is the week of the Moon here in the United States, as we've already experienced the highs of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghosts. Perfect touchdown on the lunar surface, and we're eagerly awaiting for Intuitive Machines Im2's mission to join it. The Athena lander, which was launched on February 27, fired its engines for 8 minutes and 12 seconds on Monday, slowing the spacecraft down and entering lunar orbit. It's now all set to make a landing attempt later this week, and according to a social media post from Intuitive Machines, flight controllers plan to analyze data to verify the lander's targeted circular orbit and confirm Athena's expected landing time. They say that Athena continues to be in excellent health and is expected to send lunar orbit selfies over the next few days before making a landing attempt on March 6th. And can you believe it? We are going to see a second commercial lunar landing just this week. What a time to be a space nerd, huh? That's it for T minus for March 4, 2025, brought to you by N2K CyberWire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@space.n2k.com we're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T Minus are part of the daily routine of many 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 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 Kilby is our publisher and I'm your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We will see you tomorrow.
- [22:18]
Alice Carruth
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