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A lot of times when we cover big business news in the billions on T minus, that money tends to be not just US focused, but also specifically to or from SpaceX. And we're not saying some mystery $1.8 billion investor in Florida is SpaceX. But we're also not not saying that. But our big billions for today coming in hot from Europe. T minus 22nd to Los today is December 16th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmazas and this is T. Europe signs the Iris Squared contract with Space Rise. An unnamed company plans to spend $1.8 billion in capital improvements at Cape Canaveral. SpaceX pushes for Starbase to be incorporated as a city in Texas. And our guest today is my friend and colleague from the Cyberwire Daily host, Dave Bittner. Dave has recently secured his friend in amateur or ham radio and he'll be telling us all about his plans with his new hobby. And we're kicking off today's intel briefing with some big contract updates that, yep, run in the billions. We're starting in Europe where the Space Rise Consortium has signed an agreement with the European Commission and the European Space Agency to design, deliver and operate the infrastructure for the resilience, interconnectivity and security by satellite project for a period of 12 years. The program, better known as Iris Squared, will be led by the Space Rise Group, which includes Eutelsat, Hispasat and SES. The Iris Squared constellation will form a network of 290 new low earth orbit and medium Earth orbit satellites. The program is an EU flagship initiative to develop satellites for a resilient, interconnected and secure Europe. Iris Squared is expected to be the preferred and trusted network for Europe, delivering secure and reliable high performance communication solutions to the EU and its member states, as well as high speed broadband connectivity for European citizens, governmental authorities and businesses. The EU says it'll play a transformative role in reinforcing Europe's digital sovereignty and low latency connectivity. The project will be backed by 6.5 billion euros of public funds, representing nearly 60% of the total project costs, with private financing from the Space Rise Consortium members making up the rest of the 10 and a half billion euro estimated cost. Iris Squared is expected to provide services by the beginning of 2030. Is SpaceX, Blue Origin or some other mystery space giant about to expand in Florida? Local officials are keeping mum on the company that plans to drop a cool $1.8 billion in capital investments at Cape Canaveral. The unidentified company is also expected to bring 600 new jobs to the Cape with this development, which will include a high volume production facility and high bay and launch infrastructure for the heavy lift rocket hardware. Hmm, I wonder who it could be. The proposal, which has the codename Project Hinton, is expected to enable rapid manufacturing, assembly and integration of heavy lift flight hardware and significantly increase the volume and mass of payload to orbit from Florida. Again, I wonder who it could be. The Space Florida Board of Directors is expected to discuss the proposed construction during a special meeting later this week. And speaking of SpaceX, haha, the company has sent a letter to officials in Texas to request that Starbase be incorporated as a city. Catherine Lueders, the General Manager of Starbase, wrote a letter to the county stating that to continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community. That's why we are requesting that Cameron county call an election to enable the incorporation of Starbase as the newest city in the Rio Grande Valley. Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. Responded, sharing legal and elections Administration will review the petition and see whether or not it complied with all the statutory requirements, and then we'll go from there. The first official Tranche 3 opportunity is live the Space Development Agency released a Request for proposals for the Tranche 3 program integration, known as the T3PI effort of the proliferated Warfighter space architecture. Through this RFP, SDA seeks systems engineering and integration activities to support the T3 program, which will extend the PWSA through the acquisition and integration of the next generation of hundreds of space vehicles and associated ground segments. Multiple vendors will deliver the sets of space vehicles that comprise each of the T3 transport layer, T3 tracking layer and T3 custody layer, and multiple vendors are expected to contribute to the evolution of the PWSA ground segment to drive T3 SV integration, test and mission operations. The T3 program integration contractor will be primarily responsible for the integration of T3 systems elements to ensure interoperability within the operational PWSA Proposals, if you're interested, must be submitted by noon Eastern Time, January 31, 2025. In another action to streamline and bring additional clarity to the application process for a Commercial Space Launch and Reentry License the Federal Aviation Administration has determined that various flight safety analyses performed by the federal ranges in California, Florida and Virginia satisfy requirements of the Part 450 rule. The Commercial space industry often cites meeting flight safety analysis requirements as a challenge in the Part 450 licensing process, including when an operator contracts with a federal range to perform some of the work in consultation with each federal range. The FAA has now specifically listed which safety related Part 450 provisions, if performed by the range, satisfy the rule. This provides clarity to the applicant on what work by the range is acceptable to the FAA and reduces the amount of material that the applicant must submit and improves the efficiency of the FAA Technical Review Part 450 licensed applicants can make immediate use of this new process. An advisory circular will be issued in the near term to provide additional information. The FAA is continuing to work with the federal ranges and anticipates expanding the list of safety related services done by each range that will Satisfy the Part 450 rule. Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing company, has named Tony Genghis as chief executive officer, effective December 9. According to the press release, Genghis has more than 30 years of experience in executive leadership, operations, design and production across commercial, civil defense and national security space. He previously held pivotal roles within Terran Orbital, Virgin orbit and Airbus OneWeb satellites. Loft Orbital will fly four hyperspectral sensors for Australian company ESPER in upcoming missions. The two companies announced the collaboration agreement late last week. The sensors are the first of esper's Four Leaf Clover constellation, which aims to support critical monitoring applications worldwide. Under this agreement, LOFT will integrate and operate the hyperspectral sensors onboard the upcoming yet another mission satellites beginning in 2026. China is gearing up to launch its new Long March 8 rocket from its first commercial spaceport. The Long March 8 was successfully transferred to the launching area in Wenchang city of South China's island province of Hainan over the weekend. The vehicle was developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. CASK says it uses green and environmentally friendly liquid propellant. China is expected to determine when the vehicle will launch in the coming days. That concludes today's briefing. On this Monday, head to the Selected Readings section of our show notes for more information on all the stories mentioned throughout the show. We have also included a NASA Contract award announcement for Administrative Support Services. Hey T minus crew, if you would like daily updates from us directly in your LinkedIn feed, be sure to follow the official N2K T minus page over on LinkedIn. And if you're more interested in the lighter side of what we do, here we are inasdaily on Instagram. That's where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions, and even some behind the scenes treats. Links are in the show notes. Hope you'll join us there. Our guest today is my friend and colleague, Cyberwire Daily host, Dave Buettner. Dave recently received his amateur or ham radio license. And I started by asking Dave to tell me a little bit about his history with amateur radio and what drew him to get his license.