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- [00:02]
Alice Carruth
You're listening to the N2K Space Network.
- [00:11]
Dave
And now a word from our sponsor, ThreatLocker, the powerful Zero Trust Enterprise Solution that stops ransomware in its tracks. Allow Listing is a deny by default software that makes application control simple and fast. Ring Fencing is an application containment strategy ensuring apps can only access the files, registry key keys, network resources and other applications they truly need to function. Shut out cybercriminals with world class endpoint protection from Threat LOCKER.
- [00:49]
Alicia Siegel
Today is July 25th, 2025. I'm Alice Carruth and this is T minus.
- [00:57]
Alice Carruth
T minus 20 seconds.
- [01:08]
Alicia Siegel
Aero Environment has unveiled a potential future mission concept for a next generation Mars helicopter developed with NASA's JPL. Blue Origin has signed an agreement with Scout Space to integrate one of its space domain awareness OWL sensors on board the first mission of Blue Ring. Cascade Space has raised $5.9 million in seed funding. SES and the Luxembourg government are planning to develop a second satellite for SAT. A Russian Soyuz rocket launched an Iranian built communication satellite to Earth orbit. And coming up after today's headlines, our partners@nasaspaceflight.com we'll be sharing the Space Traffic report. They'll be wrapping up the launch stories from the last seven days and taking a look at what's on the schedule for the coming week. Happy Friday everyone. Let's dive into today's intel briefing, shall we? A Russian rocket launched an Iranian designed and built communications satellite earlier today, Iranian state television announced that the Nahid 2 communications satellite was launched from Russia's Vozhdovny Cosmodrone using a Soyuz rocket. The satellite was commissioned by the Iranian Space Agency and developed in collaboration with the Iranian Space research center. The Nahid 2 is designed to remain in orbit for five years and is reportedly equipped with a propulsion system capable of adjusting its altitude by up to 50 km. The launch was announced shortly before nuclear talks between Iran and Britain, France and Germany began in istanbul. The Soyuz 2.1B rocket also carried Russia's ionosphere M3 and M4 satellites towards Earth or along with around 17 other payloads. The first two Ionosphera M satellites were launched late last year. The two new spacecraft will complete the constellation, which is designed to monitor space weather phenomena such as the impact of solar wind on near Earth, which can affect civilian and military systems. The 17 smaller payloads are thought to be Russian built cubesats that will conduct remote sensing and other work in orbit. SCS and the Luxembourg government are planning to develop a second satellite for GovSat. GovSat, also known as LuxGovSat SA is the public private partnership and 50:50 joint venture between SES and the Luxembourg government that provides satellite communications services for governments. GovSat 2 will be positioned over the European satellite arc. The new satellite will extend the coverage and scale of the first Govsat and is designed to address the needs of defence users at the highest security and service assurance level. The satellite will add new ultra high frequency channels examilitary KA band and will include other security features such as dedicated hardening, an advanced anti jamming system and embedded geolocation. The satellite will be co funded by SES and the Luxembourg government and is still subject to approval of the corresponding draft law by Parliament. It will be built by Thales Alania Space on its Space Bus 4000 B2 platform staying with satellite communications. Cascade Space has raised $5.9 million in seed funding. The company is building a platform for design, test and operation for space communication systems. The funding will accelerate the development of the company's platform for a communication system called Cascade Portal. Cascade recently released the SpaceLink Python library open source. This library contains functions for a communication system analysis that's used on the Cascade Portal implementation Blue Origin has signed an agreement with Scout Space to integrate one of its space domain awareness OWL sensors on board the first mission of Blue Ring. Blue Ring is a multi mission, multi destination vehicle providing full service, payload delivery, hosting and end to end mission operations. Scout's OWL sensor is designed to enhance real time tracking, characterization and assessment of space objects by integrating advanced optical sensing, onboard artificial intelligence driven processing and autonomous decision making capabilities. It's aiming to deliver domain wide intelligence in space in support of the US Space Force's Space Control mission set. Blue Ring's first mission is expected to launch in spring 2026 with initial injection into geostationary transfer orbit and additional services performed in geostationary orbit. AeroVironment has unveiled a potential future mission concept for its next generation Mars helicopters. Developed with NASA's jet propulsion known as Sky 4, the vehicle is designed to help pave the way for human landing on Mars through autonomous and aerial exploration. The concept is heavily focused on rapidly delivering an affordable, technically mature solution for expanded Mars exploration that would be ready for launch by 2028. The Skyfall helicopter is designed to deploy six scout helicopters on the Red Planet, where they would explore many of the sites selected by NASA and industry as top candidate landing sites for America's first Martian Astronau. Go and check out the concept images by following the link in my show notes that wraps up today's intel briefing. This is when I get to Drag our producer Liz Stokes into the studio to ask what other stories we're watching today. Liz, no kicking and screaming, okay?
- [06:53]
Liz Stokes
I would never do that. I'll happily be dragged in to let the T minus crew know where to find all the links. And speaking of which, you can find the links to all the original sources of the stories mentioned throughout the show in the show notes. Today we've included a few extra stories that we're keeping an eye on. Vega C is due to lift off on the VV27 mission. Millennium Space Systems have started commissioning of NASA's Tracers mission satellite tracker. Space Flux has received 5 million pounds in funding and and CITA Space has unveiled a new satellite called Lunar Lizzie. And I promise it's not named after me.
- [07:30]
Alicia Siegel
Are you sure? Busy. Lizzy. Where can we find all those show notes?
- [07:34]
Liz Stokes
They are available on all good podcast platforms and on our website, space.n2k.com thanks for that.
- [07:42]
Alicia Siegel
Hey, T minus crew, Tune in tomorrow for T minus Deep Space, our show for extended interviews, special editions and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. Tomorrow we' have a chat with Yolanda Ariami talking about Oman's Atlat spaceport. Check it out while you're at the gym. Catching up on errands or simply unwinding from the work week. You don't want to miss it.
- [08:19]
Alice Carruth
Foreign.
- [08:26]
Dave
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- [09:41]
Alicia Siegel
I'll hand you over now to our partners@nasaspaceflight.com.
- [09:47]
Alice Carruth
I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF and this is your weekly space traffic Report for T minus Space we started off the week with the Starlink Group 173 mission on board. A Falcon 9 liftoff took place on July 19th at 3:53 UTC from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The rocket was carrying 24 Starlink V2 mini satellites into sun synchronous orbit. The mission was the second operational launch of Starlink V2 mini satell a polar orbit and should allow increased coverage and speeds to Starlink users in higher latitudes. The first stage booster for this mission, B1082, was flying for a 14th time and had successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship of Course I Still Love youe Going to the east coast of the United States, another Falcon 9 lifted off with more Internet satellites, but it wasn't Starlink this time. Falcon 9 took to the skies on July 22nd at 21:12 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida, carrying two O3B M power satellites into medium Earth orbit. The O O3B Mpower satellites are Internet satellites built by Boeing and operated by Luxembourg based SES. These are the second generation of the company's O3B constellation, having previously launched 20 of these first generation satellites between 2013 and 2019. These were the ninth and tenth of these improved O3B satellites which started deployment back in 2022. The constellation was originally supposed to have 11 of these and this mission was in fact supposed to have carried the 9th, 10th and 11th satellites and however, issues with the electrical systems on the first four satellites forced SES to order another extra pair of these satellites from Boeing. So that meant changing the launch plans and only launching two on this mission, just like on the previous four. The next mission scheduled for 2026 should hopefully be the last and will be carrying the last three satellites needed for SES to complete the Constellation. It'll be interesting to see if after this is completed, the company will choose a low Earth orbit Constellation as its successor, or whether they'll stick with a Constellation in medium Earth or mission. SpaceX used booster B1090, which was flying for a sixth time despite being young. The booster successfully made it back to Earth, landing on SpaceX's drone ship. Just read the instructions. After that, we headed back to Vandenberg for the third and final Falcon 9 launch of the week. Liftoff took place on July 23rd at 18:13 UTC from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Falcon 9 was carrying NASA's Tracers mission along with eight other rideshares into Sun Synchronous Orbit Tracers, which stands for Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodyne Dynamics Reconnaissance Satellites are actually two satellites in one single mission. The satellites are meant to orbit one after the other in the same orbit around Earth. Measuring magnetic reconnection Magnetic reconnection is a physical process that occurs on Earth's own magnetic field when the solar wind interacts with it, modifying its shape and causing magnetic lines to disconnect and reconnect. Large flares, for example, can trigger a discharge of charged particles down to Earth's atmosphere, creating not just beautiful auroras, but also issues with our own electrical systems. Ground thanks to their near polar orbit, the two spacecraft will be able to measure these discharges in tandem as they travel close to the Earth's magnetic poles. The mission is led by David Miles from the University of Iowa, which was also the home university of famed physicist James Van Allen. He's the one that the Van Allen belts are named after. Alongside tracers were also eight other rideshares, some of them also by NASA. One of them, called real, which stands for Realistic Electron Atmospheric Loss, is related very closely to tracers. REAL is set to study the loss of particles from the Van Allen radiation belts as it's able to detect protons and electrons being discharged into our atmosphere. Another payload, called bard, was built by York Space Systems and carries the polylingual Experimental Terminal, or pext. The terminal is designed to enable interoperability between government and commercial satellite relay networks as part of NASA's efforts to move to commercial communications systems. The other payloads on board were NovaWorks, Athena, TyVAX, LIDE spacecraft and four spacecraft as part of the Skycraft 4 Constell. The mission was originally scheduled to launch on July 22, but it had to be aborted less than a minute from liftoff. The reason had to do with a power outage in Santa Barbara, which disrupted Telecommunications at the FAA's Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control center, which manages air traffic control over the Pacific Ocean. This forced the FAA to postpone the launch in order to ensure the safety of the public. Thankfully, the launch occurred the next day without a hitch and we were able to see booster B1081 returning back to Earth for a 16th time. Landing at SpaceX's Landing Zone 4 to wrap up the week, we had the launch of a Soyuz 2.1B from Vostochny carrying a multi payload mission. Liftoff took place on July 25th at 5:54 UTC from site 1s at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia. The rocket was carrying two Ionosphera M satellites and 18 other rideshares into Sun Synchronous Orbit. These were the third and fourth Ionosphera M satellites to be launched following the launch of the first pair in November of last year. This constellation of four satellites is set to measure the Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere with an array of eight, which includes four different types of spectrometers as well as particle detectors and magnetometers. Along for the ride were 18 different satellites, with one of them being an experimental Iranian communications satellite. Going into next week, we'll have a week packed with activity. For starters, we've got up to four Starlink missions, two from Florida and two from Vandenberg. On top of that, we've got the fifth flight of the European Vega C rocket from French Guiana. The mission, set to launch as soon as this weekend, will be carrying two missions in one single launch for c', Nest, the French space agency. One of the missions, the Constellation Optique in 3D, also known as CO3D, consists of four Earth observation satellites which will map Earth's surface in great detail in order to create 3D maps of the globe. The other mission is a single small satellite riding along called Microcarb and is set to map where carbon dioxide is created and absorbed on Earth at a global scale. Next week, on July 30, we're also expecting the launch of a GSLV Mk2 from India carrying the Nisar spacecraft. Nisar, which stands for NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, is an Earth observation satellite born of a collaboration between the American and Indian space agencies. Several of the satellite systems have been provided by NASA, while ISRO is the one launching the mission and provided the satellite bus as well as some of the instruments. Next week we're also hoping to see Australian company Gilmour Space finally attempting its maiden launch of its ERIS rocket, which had to be delayed from a July 16 debut to July 26. Let's hope that this one is the final attempt. And it's not just starlinks that SpaceX will be launching next week, as the company is also aiming to fly its next human spaceflight mission, Crew 11. The mission is currently set to launch no earlier than July 31st at 1609 UTC from Launch Complex 39A in Florida. It'll be SpaceX's 11th crew rotation mission to the International Space Station and will feature the sixth flight of Crew Dragon Endeavor, the most flights of any Dragon capsule to date. Teams are currently preparing the launch pad and hardware for that mission. Transporter Erector @LC39A rolled back to the hangar this Thursday and Endeavour was transported for mating to its rocket. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fink will serve as commander and pilot for this mission. Both of them will be accompanied by Mission Specialist Anjaxa, astronaut Kimi Ayui and Mission Specialist and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platinov. Next week we may also have a few launches from China, including the return to flight for the Hyperbola 1 rocket, as well as the launch of another batch of Guo Wang Internet satellite. There's also the potential for the launch of a haste mission from Wallops, Virginia carrying a secretive hypersonic payload. As always, a lot of these dates and missions can change over time, so we recommend that you check nextspaceflight.com for the latest updates or download the app to your phone. I'm Alicia Siegel for nsf and that's your weekly space traffic Report. Now back to T Minus Space.
- [18:01]
Alicia Siegel
We'll be right back.
- [18:08]
Dave
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- [18:47]
Alicia Siegel
Welcome back. Ever wondered what it's like to pop a bottle of champagne in microgravity? French champagne house Mum has done just that, Launching Mum Cordon Rouge Stella, the first champagne crafted for space flight. Designed with a high tech bottle and specially developed wine blend, this bubbly isn't just for toasting milestones on Earth. It's now part of celebrating humanity's push into orbit. Why does it matter? Because even in space culture and connection. Follow Us the MUM team worked with space agencies and experts to ensure that astronauts and one day space tourists can safely sip champagne while floating in zero gravity. From a space tech perspective, it's a small but intriguing innovation, merging tradition with a future of space exploration and commercialization. As more private companies aim for low Earth orbit and beyond, Mump's Cosmic Champagne reminds us that space is becoming a place not just for work, but for life. So whether it's sealing a successful mission or just marking a stellar moment, cheers to sipping among the stars. And that's it for T minus. Brought to you by N2K CyberWire we'd love to know what you think of this podcast. We're conducting our annual audience survey to learn more about our listeners. We're collecting your insights until August 31st. There's a link in the show notes, so please fill it out for us. 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, technology and ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how@n2k.com N2K's producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. Maria Varmazes is our host and she'll be back on the air next Tuesday. And I'm Senior Producer Alice Carouse. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.
- [21:12]
Alice Carruth
T minus.
- [21:25]
Dave
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