C (9:37)

Maria We've added one additional link in today's selected reading section of our show Notes. It covers the announcement that the Space Development agency has selected Dr. Garpa Tap Sandhu as the Acting Director of the SDA. You can read more about that and all the other stories mentioned in the show by following the links that are available on the podcast platform that you listen to us on or on our.

A (9:57)

Website, space.n2k.com it/crew if you are just joining us, welcome and 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 coworkers. A growing audience is the most important thing for us and we would love your help as part of the T Minus Crew. If you find our show useful, please share it so other professionals like you can find T minus. Thank you so much everybody. It really means a lot to me.

D (10:41)

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A (11:13)

Today's guest is Kevin Hell, President and CEO of Empower Technology. Kevin started by telling me more about Empower.

E (11:25)

We are a leader in advanced solar technology for space. We have a product called Dragon Scales and essentially it's a very unique technology. It's silicon based. It's flexible, resilient, lightweight solution for solar power in space. And it really addresses a huge need in the industry right now, which is traditional solar solutions for space are both too expensive and and incredibly supply constrained based on gallium arsenide. You know, gallium is incredibly limited right now and 98% of it comes from China and is really at risk. One of the things that's been driving or has been historically driving gallium arsenide is the fact that it has very high efficiency relative to silicon. In fact, silicon was the initial technology used in space for solar arrays. And then gallium arsenide was developed to increase the efficiency. So you didn't need as long of an array of and that was particularly important when launch vehicle costs were very high and when the penalty for weight was extremely high.

A (12:26)

Yeah.

E (12:27)

However, launch costs have come down, the penalty for weight has come down. And even though silicon has lower efficiency given the amount of power requirements for these new missions, silicon has found its way back into back to the future, you know, it's now something that we consider for designs and works out quite well. And it's the only way that you're going to meet the requirements for many of these large scale missions. However, in addition to that, one of the great things about Dragon Scales is that we can take advancements in the silicon photovoltaic world that's primarily driven by the terrestrial market and take those increases in efficiency and essentially drag and drop them into our Dragon Scales architecture. So we're able to leverage a lot of very expensive investments that the terrestrial market makes to increase the efficiency for your rooftop or for any other solar application. So some of the new technologies that are coming down the pike are heterojunction cells, top gun cells, as well as perovskites on silicon. And what these new technologies do is really close the efficiency gap relative to gallium arsenide. One of the penalties of silicon is that again, you need a slightly longer array, that array can weigh a little bit more. But with these new technologies, that efficiency gap, we expect that to close. And in fact Perovska and silicon promise to get very, very close to the efficiency of gallium arseide. And when that happens, there really is no penalty at all for silicon. You got, you know, a cost that is, you know, 5 to 10x, you know, less and you have unlimited amounts of supply. And so really that's where we see it going over the long term through our roadmap.

A (14:06)

Yeah, I was going to say supply chain is you take that out of the equation also. So that's, I mean, it's never out of the equation, but it's less of a concern certainly. So, yeah, those are all very, very important considerations there, closing that gap.

E (14:18)

We're just glad that billions of dollars are being poured into the R and D associated with the increasing efficiency for your terrestrial rooftop applications, given their scale. And then that flows down to us and we can now use that for space and do, and do the things that we do to make it particularly suited for space.

A (14:33)

Honestly, what a great place to be, especially with such a great innovation. So very enviable, honestly. So, congratulations so on a recent announcement about a new investment in your company by Lockheed Martin Ventures. This was announced in late August. Would you mind telling me a bit about that?

E (14:52)

Yeah, sure, yeah. And it builds on two recent funding announcements we've had. The first was in May where we announced the series B funding, $21 million in series B led by Raiser's Edge and Shield Capital. And then more recently, we just announced an Additional investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures, which joins us as a strategic investor. And that brings the total Series B funding to over $24 million, which is really exciting. And this is really going to allow us to scale our high volume production of Dragon Scales and also expand our reach into national security missions as well, since obviously both Lockheed Martin Ventures as well as Razor's Edge and Shield Capital are focused on that area.

A (15:32)

Absolutely. I was going to ask about that partnership with Lockheed Martin Ventures, sort of what they bring, obviously financial support, but as a partner to you all, what kind of like the relationships and what they bring to you, maybe in the softer side of things, so to speak.

E (15:47)

You know, Lockheed Martin is one of the largest space and defense contractors in the world. And so their involvement brings mission expertise, defense sector reach and credibility. And it's really a very powerful signal. It validates Dragon Scales as the technology that's needed for this next generation of space missions that I was talking about. It also creates opportunities for Collaboration on Critical U.S. defense and national security missions that need resilient, rapidly deployable power solutions. As I mentioned, there's really a constraint in the market right now around solar power. And so we can come to the table on these kind of missions, particularly on the US Defense side, and help and provide solar power solutions. And it also, it helps accelerate our growth into areas like responsive launch and proliferated Leo Constellations, which is really a huge area right now.

A (16:40)

Huge. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When you speak about scaling up, what does that look like for you all? Is that new facilities just being able to be producing more?

E (16:51)

Sure, yeah. No, it's a really exciting time for us. As I talked about last time, we have a manufacturing partner in upstate New York, Universal Instruments, and we have just started to produce off of our high production, high volume production line in New York. It has a 2 megawatt annual capacity, which is more, by the way, than the combined global output of the three main suppliers to space combined. So just give you an idea. And we are, we are producing flight modules out of that facility now on this new line. It's very exciting for us. And so this, this additional funding is going to help us continue to expand, you know, our production with, with Universal Instruments.

A (17:34)

That's fantastic. Anything else that you want to add about this announcement or just in general, what you all are sort of up to now and looking to do in the future?

E (17:44)

Well, you know, the space market continues to grow and we've got Leo Constellations for communications. You've got, as I've talked about, defense and intelligence missions you have space mobility, orbit raising services, space habitats, lunar and Mars missions, AI and in space computing. And then of course people are talking about space based power generation and beaming. All of these things require power and they require orders of magnitude more power than has ever been done in the past. And they need to be at a price point that is an order of magnitude or more or less than has ever been done in the past. And we are at that, we are looking to be that supplier to help enable all of these different missions and to make it actually work. And so we've had now over 15 years of heritage in orbit that we're really unique in the market in the sense that we're the only ones that have this combination of space heritage. 15 years already on orbit, we have a pipeline, over a half a billion dollars of active sales engagements. There's really little competition out there for what these new missions require. The legacy players are expensive and as I mentioned, very supply constrained. Other silicon suppliers are emerging as well, but they're years behind us and they don't really have yet scalable production that's working now like we do. And so we're really in a unique position and we're looking to basically be the major supplier for this, this next space 2.0 generation of Ms.

A (19:25)

We'll be right back.

F (19:29)

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A (20:00)

Welcome back. If you have a couple million bucks burning a hole in your pocket and an abiding love of Star wars, you might really relate to this headline. Because last Thursday somebody spent US$3.6 million at an auction to buy one of the actual lightsabers used by Darth Vader, both the actor and the stunt performer in both Star the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. $3.6 million for an on screen prop. Now, I do not have that kind of spare change, but the devotion to a lifelong fandom, as you might have gathered from yesterday's show, yes, I do get that. If I did have that kind of money though, I'd probably be asking myself, what else is money for than to buy the actual red glowy lightsaber seen on screen that did strike down the mighty Obi Wan Kenobi and slice up the arm of Luke Skywalker. I mean, that's just respecting our geek history, after all. But yes, this light lightsaber is ultimately a screen prop. It doesn't actually do the cool glowy slicey thing. Sorry to disappoint, I know that part you do need to use your imagination for until someone figures out the tech and the screen prop itself is a fascinating bit of movie magic and prop making ingenuity. It was made from a 1950s camera flashbulb attachment and an I quote expertly modified by the production team into a lightsaber according to the prop store auction house description. And if you want an excruciatingly, almost worryingly detailed account about what went into this prop's build, rest assured that the contributors to the Star Wars Fandom Wiki have you more than covered with paragraphs of detail, and I will let you hunt that down yourself. In any case, congratulations to the lucky nerd who got their hands on this bit of film history. Best to stay anonymous with your winning though. I can think of quite a few people, fandom wiki contributors included, who are quite jealous. And that is T minus Brought to you by N2K CyberWire what do you think about T minus Space Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. The link is in the show notes for you and 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 cyber security 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 Ivan. Peter Kilby is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. I'll see you tomorrow.

E (23:29)

T minus.