← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
Splashdowns, Satellites, and Space Crypto.
00:25:23
NASA SpaceX Crew 10 returned from the ISS. China launches the Geely Constellation Group 04 satellites. ISRO to launch another American satellite. And more.
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- [00:02]
Maria Varmazes
You're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:07]
Patrick O'Neill
Abercrombie's Viral Denim Sale is back and Spotify listeners get an extra 15% off with code Spotify AF. Abercrombie is known for their denim with 30 to 50% off all jeans. Find out how denim should fit. Shop the Viral Denim Sale in the Abercrombie app online or in stores. Valid in stores and online through August 11, 2025 in US and Canada. Excludes clearance price reflects discount. COD. Valid in US and Canada through August 11, 2025. Exclusions apply. See details online.
- [00:41]
Maria Varmazes
Today is August 11, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T minus.
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Patrick O'Neill
T minus 20 seconds.
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Maria Varmazes
Shift 4 payments and Blue Origin are working. Enable customers to pay for their trips to space in cryptocurrency and stablecoins. Edge X has closed a 2.3 million euros seed funding round to accelerate commercialization of their next generation Edge AI computer for satellites. ISRO announces that it will be launching another American satellite in the coming months. A Geelong 3 carrier rocket launched the Geely Constellation Group 04 satellites from the coastal waters off of Shandong, China. NASA's SpaceX Crew 10 returns to Earth in a splashdown off the coast of California. And speaking with me today is our guest Patrick o', Neill, public affairs and Outreach Lead at the International Space Station U.S. national Laboratory. And Patrick will be bringing us the monthly update on what's going on on the ISS later in the show, so stick around to find out. Foreign it is Monday. I hope you're having a great one. Thanks for joining me today and welcome home to NASA's SpaceX crew 10. NASA astronauts Anne McLean and Nicole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov returned to Earth on Saturday. Crew 10 were the first crew to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. And during their mission, the crew members traveled nearly 62,795,205 miles and completed 2,368 orbits around the Earth. Not too shabby. The Crew 10 mission was the first spaceflight for Ayers and peskov and the second spaceflight for McClane and Onishi. The crew contributed hundreds of hours to scientific research, maintenance activities and technology demonstrations. Maclean Ayers and Onishi completed investigations on plant and microalgae growth, examined how space radiation affects DNA sequences in plants, observed how microgravity changes human eye structure and cells in the body and more. McClain and Ayers also completed a spacewalk on May 1, relocating a communications antenna, beginning the installation of a mounting bracket for a future International Space Station rollout, solar array and other tasks. Stay with us later in the show to find out what's going on next on the iss after today's headlines. And while we were watching the reentry of the astronauts from space, China was sending up more satellites. A Jielong 3 carrier rocket carried the Geely Constellation Group 04 satellites from the coastal waters near Rizhou Shandong, China. Among the spacecraft on board was a Zoom lion satellite, which claims to be the first of its kind in the global engineering machinery sector. Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Tech is a global manufacturer of high end equipment with core businesses in engineering machinery, mining machinery and agricultural machinery. The company says their satellite opens new possibilities for global service connectivity from polar regions and deserts to offshore platforms. Zoomlion says it also strengthens the integration of big data, IoT AI and satellite comms, supporting a next generation service ecosystem that's capable of delivering smarter, faster and greener solutions worldwide. It may be one to watch in our monthly Integrity ISR segment in the future. And let's head on over to India now and following the success of the NISAR mission, ISRO says it will be planning to launch another American satellite in the coming months. ISRO's chairman V. Narayanan says they plan to launch a 6500 kilo communications satellite built by the Americans and using an Indian launcher from Indian soil. Narayanan, who is also the Secretary of the Department of Space, announced the upcoming launch during a presentation on Sunday. He was also presented with the honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the Governor of Maharashtra during the 21st convocation of SRM Institute of Science and Technology. It is great to see India's success being acknowledged by their international partners. Belgian space company Edgex has closed a 2.3 million euros seed funding round to accelerate commercialization of their next generation Edge AI computer for satellites. The company's Sterna computer is a high performance data processing unit powered by Nvidia technology. Ajax says it provides the computational performance and AI acceleration needed to run complex algorithms directly in orbit, which eliminates the traditional bottleneck of sending massive raw data sets to Earth for processing. The startup has also closed a multi unit deal with a satellite operator worth 1.1 million euros and can already announce plans of an in orbit demonstration on a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission in February 2026. And here's a line I really didn't think I'd be saying so soon. You can now buy a Spaceflight with cryptocurrency Shift4 payments and Blue Origin are working together to enable customers to pay in cryptocurrency and stablecoins for trips to space on New Shepherd. And during our monthly editorial meeting, our colleague Dave Bittner asked if crypto ATMs will now be equipped with a convert to spaceflight option in addition to the cash choice. Good question. It's also worth noting that, you know, kind of fun fact, Shift 4 is the company owned by SpaceX astronaut Jared Isaacman. If you're into digital assets and a fancy trip to the Karman line, then you can find out more about the new payment system by following the link in our show notes. And speaking of show notes, our producer Al Skruth joins us now to let us know what else has been included in today's selected reading section for you. Alice, what have you got for us? No cryptocurrency for a spaceflight, I'm afraid, but we have included two additional stories for you. CGTN has provided an update on the.
- [07:02]
Patrick O'Neill
Recent activities being conducted on China's Tiangon.
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Maria Varmazes
Space Station, and we're seeing a few announcements out of SmallSat. Most notably, Safran DSI has been selected.
- [07:11]
Patrick O'Neill
To supply electric propulsion systems for Astroforge's asteroid mission.
- [07:15]
Maria Varmazes
Best of luck to them. Absolutely. Those links can be found on our website space.n2k.com just click on the episode title. Hi T minus Crew. If you'd 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 us daily on Instagram and that's where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions and even sometimes some behind the scenes treats. Links are in the show notes for you. Hope you'll join us there.
- [08:07]
Patrick O'Neill
I'm Ben Yellen, co host of the Caveat Podcast. Each Thursday we sit down and talk about the biggest legal and policy developments affecting technology that are shaping our world. Whether it be sitting down with experts or government officials officials or breaking down the latest political developments, we talk about the stories that will have tangible impacts on businesses and people around the world. If you are looking to stay informed on what is happening and how it could impact you, make sure to listen to the Caveat Podcast.
- [08:40]
Maria Varmazes
Are you ready to dairy free your mind this summer? Melt away your dairy free expectations with so delicious dairy free frozen desserts. Enjoy mind blowing flavors like salted caramel cluster chocolate cookies and cream cookie dough and more. For over 35 years. So delicious has been cranking up the flavor with show stopping products that are 100% dairy free, certified vegan by Vegan Action and are so unbelievably creamy your taste buds will do a double take.
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Patrick O'Neill
Dairy free your mind.
- [09:05]
Maria Varmazes
Visit sodeliciousdairyfree.com today we have our monthly update from friend of the show Patrick o' Neil, who who is the public affairs and outreach lead at the International Space Station U.S. national Laboratory.
- [09:23]
Patrick O'Neill
I was recently out in Las Vegas for the Ascend Conference which was a great opportunity to bring a variety of partners from the space community to talk about what's happening in low earth orbit on the space station, what's going to be happening beyond the space station. And you know, it was really interesting because there's a obviously there's a lot going on from a D.C. perspective and there was a lot of people that were very focused on making sure that voices are being heard on the critical importance of us to not only have a space station but also to continue to do great R and D on that. So it was really exciting to see the partner community really stepping up and talking about the great things that are happening and how we can do even better things as we continue to move on through the next few years of the space station and potentially beyond.
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Maria Varmazes
So since we Last talked crew 11 has headed up to the ISS. So that's always exciting. Now we know also who they're zero G indicator is. That was kind of a.
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Patrick O'Neill
Was that the coolest thing ever? Oh my gosh, that was awesome. Love that. But yeah, we have some new astronauts that are on the space station. Four new astronauts, two. Two NASA astronauts. And I think we might have touched on this last time too. But I just love the juxtaposition between you have Mike Fink, someone that, who has been in the space program for the better part of 30 years and has not been to the space station since 2011. And then you have Zena Cardman, this is her first spaceflight. So to be able to have both of them up there being able to an array of research that's going to be happening over the next couple of months. Really excited for what it is that that they're going to have the ability to, to focus on and the value that that can bring to the scientific community and humanity alike.
- [11:00]
Maria Varmazes
And also we there's a Jax astronaut and a Roscosmos cosmonaut joining. So it's just love seeing that International collaboration. And it's, it's a really beautiful thing. I remember hearing when they were, I think right after they, they were, they were on after the launch and they started saying their own greetings in their different languages and they were sort of handing off to each other in respective languages. It was so collegial. I'm sure that's standard, but it was just really beautiful to hear and it's just always a nice reminder of what.
- [11:24]
Patrick O'Neill
It'S all about, the beauty of the space station. I mean, again, you have people from all walks of life living and working in space in harmony and being able to be supportive of one another, to support research for those that are on the ground. That's why we have it. And so it's great, to your point, to be able to see them, communicate to their people, to get them excited and inspired about what it is that they are about ready to embark upon.
- [11:46]
Maria Varmazes
Absolutely. So we did touch a lot on what I think Crew 11 is going to be doing, so we don't need to rehash all of that. But you did mention something cool about your recent trip to Texas, to Austin, Texas, I think it was.
- [11:58]
Patrick O'Neill
Well, I was going to try to go out there, but this actually did fly on Crew 11. It's a yeast investigation from Starbase Brewing, if memory serves. And we've done a variety of projects on the space station looking at either plant biology, yeast. And I think that what's unique about this one is obviously there is a company that probably specializes in the development of things that we don't necessarily do on station. But to take a step back, yeast is a very important element for us to be able to explore in space because it goes beyond just being able to produce things that we might drink. But it goes from everything from bionutrients to energy. I mean, it just really spans the gamut. And if we're trying to eventually get to places like the moon and Mars, we need to learn how to grow and to cultivate and to take advantage of things that we leverage here on the ground. So that, that way, you know, we can live as nominal of a life as we can when we are on these extreme environments, that otherwise, you know, we're not familiar with trying to grow anything around. So again, I look at those types of investigations. Yes, there's a fun novelty associated with it if it's from a brewery and people can deduce what they will from there. But there is major scientific implications for this type of research. And I'll give another example where over the years we flew multiple projects from Anheuser Busch and Budweiser where they were looking at barley and they wanted to see how barley would react in extreme environments. And it wasn't just so that they could bring that into their product line, but barley was, I believe is the fifth largest cereal crop in the world. And there's so many applications for it across the agricultural community. So how can we take these types of R and D to low Earth orbit and put it in that stressful environment and see if maybe there's ways that it could be extrapolated across a myriad of disciplines for the agricultural community? So sometimes there's fun names that are associated with them and yeah, they might have, you know, some grandius visions, but that doesn't mean that there's not fundamental or cool knowledge that could be gained that could be applicable for a lot of different audiences.
- [14:10]
Maria Varmazes
Absolutely. And I, I guess I, I may have touched on this last time and stop me if I did, but I'm very curious about how like the, the beer sausage was made. I mean, it may be, it may be in this case and in a lot of these, it's just they responded to a solicitation, but I'm just imagining if I was walking into Starbase Brewing, I'd be going, you guys got to do what? How did that happen? So, like, yeah, how did that happen?
- [14:32]
Patrick O'Neill
So to your point, there's, there's a variety of ways in which you can leverage the space station. One of them is through just general solicitations. We have them, NASA has them. They are across a lot of different scientific disciplines, but other ways now that you can leverage the space station. We've talked at length about the private astronaut missions. You can go straight to those entities. But then we also have multiple companies that own and operate their own facilities on the space station. We call those ISS National Lab, commercial service providers. And so if you go straight to them and say, hey, I don't see any solicitations that are kind of focused on what I'm looking to do, but you have facilities on station that I think could support this type of research. Could we maybe collaborate? And if they have a viable project that needs space, that this, the, the, that they're working with a partner that has a facility on station that could support that research, then we can try to get that into the manifest. Now obviously there's got to be scientific merit behind it. It can't just be a marketing thing. Right. Again, as mentioned, you know, yeast is something that we need to better understand. So again, That's a pretty cool relationship. And so that's what they did. They went straight to a commercial service provider and they said, this is what we would like to do. Can we make this happen? And the answer was, well, by golly, yeah, I think we can. And so they worked in tandem that flew with crew 11. It's going to be up there for a while and it's going to come back down in a couple of months. And so we'll see what it is that they've been able to learn from that. But again, that's one of the ways in which you can leverage station now. And that's the beauty of how we've evolved this platform over all these years, too, is there's not one cookie cutter way to make it happen.
- [16:08]
Maria Varmazes
That is really cool. I love hearing those stories because it is. There is that novelty factor, as you mentioned. But the as I told you before, I love to bake, so yeast importance is not lost on me at all. And certainly, you know, I think people might want a fresh loaf of bread in. On orbit one day or beyond.
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Patrick O'Neill
Right.
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Maria Varmazes
You know, or on another planet. And that actually really would matter for a lot of people. Like the smell of it.
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Patrick O'Neill
When we bring cargo supply missions to the space station. What is one? What are some of the things we always try to bring with it? Fresh freight, whether that's veggies or bread or something like that. Because it gives a sense of, you know, home, and it allows for them to kind of feel like, oh, gosh, okay. It reminds them maybe in some ways what it is that we're doing a lot of this for. In the first place, it's to benefit where that food just came from or give us the opportunity to grow food in distant places so that we can have that sense of home again.
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Maria Varmazes
Yeah, It's a humanity thing. And all of this matters, especially when you're talking about being away from Earth for months, years, potentially. We have to think about this stuff. It's actually really cool when you get down into it.
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Patrick O'Neill
I'm with you 100%.
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Maria Varmazes
Yeah. And nerding out a little bit. It's good. So, yeah, I mean, you just wrapped up quite a bit of travel. I'm wondering what's up next for you. Hopefully things maybe are quieting down a bit, but I'm sure not too quiet. Right.
- [17:20]
Patrick O'Neill
Things are quieting down from a travel perspective, but that does not mean that things are slowing down from a space station program perspective. So as we alluded to, we had the crew 11 astronauts. They are now up there, they have got their space legs about them, which now means it's time for us to send them a whole bunch of research. And so we have the SpaceX's 33rd commercial resupply services mission that's going to be launching to the space station in mid to late August time frame. I'm not looking forward to the launch time because it's going to be right in the middle of the night, so there will not be a lot of sleep, but there will be a lot of science that's going to be flying up with that. And so I think we touched on some of it with the crew 11 astronauts last time around. But again, it's going to be a lot of biomedical research. We're going to have some edge computing and technology demonstrations that are going to be flying. We're going to have some student projects that are going to be flying up. So it's about not only inspiring the next generation, but also inspiring the next, the workforce of tomorrow and letting them know about the opportunities that will one day be available to them as researchers and maybe, who knows, astronauts one day too. But there's a lot of great science on this mission. Again, in space, production continues to be a very, very strong driver for us. How can we use the space environment to create or manufacture things that could be brought to patients or consumers back on Earth? We have a lot of that science that's flying up. We have some 3D tissue samples that are going to be going up to see again. Can we, how do they evolve in space? Can we, can we grow them more effectively? Can, can we eventually, you know, grow organs or tissues in space that could be applicable for patients on Earth? I mean, it, it's, it's always exciting to talk about some of the science it's going to be going up there because every single time we're just, we're anning things further. And there's, you know, it's not just the, you know, there's the importance of the fundamental research, but the fundamental research happens so that we can start to apply it more and more and more. And so that's why I say that, you know, I look at the next five years of Station, maybe beyond, you know, the research that's going to be going up is truly the best of the best because it builds on the foundation of all of the great work that's happened over the last 25 years. And so now is the time for us to really maximize the remaining years that we have on station so that we can create novel innovations. But also further business models and allow for us to have that successful segue to those commercial destinations in low Earth orbit.
- [19:54]
Maria Varmazes
We'll be right back.
- [19:58]
Patrick O'Neill
This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply.
- [20:30]
Maria Varmazes
Welcome back. Today we are taking a moment to remember Captain James, better known as Jim Lovell. One of NASA's most seasoned explorers and beloved figures in space history. Lovell passed away on Thursday, August 7th at the age of 97 in Lake Forest, Illinois. From his early feats on Gemini missions to orbiting the moon aboard Apollo 8, Lovell was part of the pioneering era of human spaceflight. But it was his calm leadership aboard Apollo 13 that truly defined his legacy. When an oxygen tank exploded en route to the moon, Lovell guided his crew back to Earth through a daring and improvised mission that NASA dubbed a successful failure. His famous line Houston, we've had a problem etched him into public lore and Tom Hanks portrayal of him in the film Apollo 13, where that line was tweaked to Houston, we have a problem introduced his cool headed heroism to new generations. And Tom Hanks paid a heartfelt tribute to the incredible man that he portrayed on screen, saying there are people who dare, who dream, who lead others to places we would not go on our own. On this night of a full moon, he passes on to the heavens, to the cosmos, to the stars. Godspeed to you on this next voyage, Jim Lovell. Lovell's legacy endures as a reminder that even in the face of peril, human ingenuity, courage and calm can chart a path home. And in his memory, his family shared this statement. We are saddened to announce the passing of our beloved father, USN Captain James A. Jim Lovell, a Navy pilot and officer, astronaut, leader and space explorer. We are enormously proud of his amazing life and career accomplishments highlighted by his legendary leadership in pioneering human spaceflight. But to all of us, he was dad, granddad and the leader of our family. Most importantly, he was our hero. We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible. He was truly one of a kind. Fair winds and following seas to the one and only Jim Lovell and that's T minus Brought to you by N2K CyberWire we'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. We're conducting our annual audience survey to learn more about our listeners. We're collecting your insights until the end of this month, so check out the link in the show notes and fill out the survey. 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, the technology and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how@n2k.com N2K Senior Producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Listo. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ivan. Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
- [23:52]
Patrick O'Neill
T minus.