← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
Starlab Docking, Lunar Power, Global Space Deals.
00:24:07
Northrop Grumman has conducted an RPO docking demo with Starlab. Honda and Astrobotic to develop lunar power solutions. IAC opens in Sydney. And more.
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Foreign you're listening to the N2K space network.
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Today is September 29, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T -T -20 seconds to Los T Dris China's galactic energy successfully completed the latest test run of the second stage of its REUS reusable liquid launch vehicle. Arianespace and BULL have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on space debris mitigation. The International Astronautical Congress has kicked off its annual meeting in Sydney, Australia. The American Honda Motor Company and Astrobotic Technology are developing a scalable and integrated power solution that for sustained lunar surface missions. Northrop Grumman has successfully performed a rendezvous, proximity operations and docking demonstration with Star Lab Space Station. I recently caught up with Thorsten Kreening from Spacewatch Global to chat about his key takeaways from World Space Business Week in Paris. So make sure to stick around for more on that after today's intelligence briefing. Happy Monday everybody. Thank you for joining me. First up, Northrop Grumman has successfully performed a rendezvous, proximity operations and docking demonstration with Starlab Space Station. It is the latest milestone in developing fully autonomous capability for Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft and Starlab Space is a US led joint venture between Voyager Technologies, Airbus, Mitsubishi and MDA Space. They've partnered with Northrop Grumman, Palantir Hilton and the Ohio State University on programs for the commercial space station. And as part of an agreement announced in 2023, Northrop Grumman is adapting CYGNSS to dock and provide cargo delivery miss to low Earth orbit space stations. They've signed a tentative agreement for Northrop Grumman to supply the commercial space station for five years. Northrop Grumman says that evolving Cygnus to meet the needs of commercial customers begins their new chapter of commitment to advancing the commercial LEO economy. And although this demo was performed on terra firma and no, not in space, you didn't miss a launch announcement. The Starlab space Station is currently targeted to launch into space no earlier than 2028. The American Honda Motor Company and Astrobotic Technology are developing a scalable and integrated power solution for sustained lunar surface missions. The two companies are conducting a joint feasibility study to explore how the Honda Regenerative fuel cell system can be integrated with Astrobotics Vertical Solar Array technology and Luna grid service to provide continuous power even during prolonged periods of darkness on the Moon. The Honda Regenerative fuel cell system is a circulative renewable energy system which is designed to continuously produce oxygen, hydrogen and electricity using solar energy and water. And it's hoped that during the lunar day the system stores solar power as hydrogen and then converts it into electricity during the lunar night. After generating electricity, the only byproduct of the fuel cell is water, which would then be recycled into the Honda high pressure water electrolysis system to then create a closed loop energy cycle. Honda and Astrobotic plan to simulate one year solar illumination profiles at various lunar South Pole sites using the Astrobotic Vertical Solar Array technology systems. These simulated illumination profiles will determine how much sun the VSAT solar panels will receive on the lunar surface to power the water electrolysis during the day, which would enable the Honda system to convert the stored hydrogen into electricity throughout the night. And I know many of you know this because you just made the trek, but the International Astronautical Congress, better known as the iac, has kicked off its annual meeting and this year the venue is in Sydney. And the Australian space industry is very keen to develop international collaboration opportunities. The Australian government is negotiating a cooperative agreement between the European Space Agency and Australia and this would establish a formal mechanism for Australian businesses and researchers to access ESA's Space Science Program and missions. A treaty level Space Framework agreement between Australia and the United States has also been agreed. Framework aims to open the door to new opportunities for government businesses and researchers to collaborate on joint projects with NASA and other American partners. Arianespace and BOL have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on space debris mitigation. Arianespace and BULL conducted a feasibility study to implement the Horn post mission disposal device which is being developed by BULL on the Ariane 6 dual launch system. The study showed that an installation of the horn on the Ariane 6 DLS would be effective and both parties will now collaborate on the next step which is targeting a flight demonstration of the Horn on the Ariane 6. Available launch slots are currently being identified starting from 2027 and things are indeed heating up as always in the commercial space industry in China. Let's check in with them now. Chinese commercial space firm Galactic Energy successfully completed the latest test run of the second stage of its reusable liquid launch vehicle, and the test for the Palace One was conducted at Galactic Energy's test center in Anhui Province in East China. This successful test paves the way for Palace One's maiden flight, and the company says that it lays a solid foundation for the upcoming mission. And that wraps up today's top five stories for this Monday. N2K senior producer Alice Cruth joins me now with a look at the other stories making today's headlines. What are you looking at today, Alice? I'm sure it's going to be a busy week with IAC Maria, but for today we only have three additional stories included in the Selected Readings section of the show. Notes Cider Space has been awarded a manufacturing services contract to support the Toby Hanna Army Depot. The South China Morning Post is reporting that China's aerospace industry is undergoing a manufacturing revolution that could could make rockets and satellites as efficiently produced as cars. And IONQ has appointed General John J. Raymond to its Board of Directors. You know, a lot of people are listening to podcasts through YouTube nowadays and you know, if that's the way you would prefer to listen to this show, well, good news everyone. T Minus Space Daily is indeed on YouTube and we post our episodes there along with video clips from interviews and events throughout the year. So if you're dual screening at work and keep the YouTube player going all day while your head's down, listen, I get it. I'm not judging. 2K Cyber is our company's YouTube channel and on there you'll find the T Minus Space Daily playlist along with other shows that we make here at N2K. Again, that's 2K Cyber on YouTube.
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I recently caught up with Thorsten Kreening from Spacewatch Global to chat about his key takeaways from World Space Business Week in Paris.
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World Space Business Week is the most important, and I repeat it, it's the most important European event When it comes to space business, and really the pronunciation is on business here. So it's not about the coolest new technology for whatever, radio communication or so, or the latest exploration to God knows where. It's business driven and I think that moves the needle. So you have every business leader in the room or in the conference, the top CEOs. Yes. Also this event is designed for that. It comes for a price, a high price to attend. But for anyone who can afford it and who wants to do really serious business, that is the event where you go because you meet them all and you have the chance also to meet all of them and to talk to most of the people. And we haven't touched on the, on the content side and where we stand on the space or business at the moment in 2025. No, it's just this pool of people, of colleagues, of friends, of industry professionals that you can listen to and talk to as well.
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And it's interesting because in my head I think of it as you say, the leading European event. But while Europe is the focus, it is truly also very, very international.
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Absolutely. And that's why I tried to phrase it that it is the most important event in Europe. Not for Europe or not European event as an enclosed European thing. No, we have people from like minded and friendly nations. There were huge delegations from Asia, from Japan, from Korea. And that's great, that's great to see.
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Wonderful. So I'm curious, as you look at World Space Business Week this year, what stands out to you? It was a very busy week. These events are packed. So since it's been a few days, has anything sort of started to percolate as maybe overall trends or anything that really stood out?
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I think for your listeners that are not familiar with the world's based business Week, there's a reason that it's called World Space Business Week because it goes on a course of five days and when you have a conference over five days, you have multiple streams. And here in especially this event, it comes more or less in all flavors. You want. You have a summit on Finance, you have a Summit on Insurance, you have sdss, the Space Defense and Security Summit, you have the Summit on Earth Observation Business, you have. The new thing this year was called SPIN or the Space Innovation Summit where we talk, another acronym. Yeah, we are good in that as well.
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We do love this.
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But it all comes with top level people to talk or about their subject. And that's great to listen as well. I mean there was not a single thing that where you say, wow, that is now the announcement going to the moon and back. And so but that happens a few years back. But what you could see this year is this, under the current geopolitical climate that defense is pushing, is moving, is driving commercial and politics as well. So. And that is something what we haven't seen over the last years, because over the last years we have done this business and we were so happy if someone bought our Earth observation picture and said, hold on, we have a client. Yeah. And they do amazing stuff with that. Or we told them what to do with it, with that, even that. But the majority of the entire industry outside the security domain is still limited, let's face it. I mean, we hope that it's there. We believe in that. And maybe data centers in space or whatever it is. This year it was clear Defense pays for the show and gets a show. Euroconsult and Spacetech Partners merged early last year during the Space symposium to create NovaSpace. So you have this new brand of Nova Space. So not everyone is familiar what is NovaSpace. They have done a fantastic job and I really admire what they have put together and the quality of this event that is really outstanding. So coming back to the defense side in the sdss, one of the people from Nova Space, Anna Porkhausen, gave an overview about the defense market and what we learned. 2022, the two lines of spendings in the commercial and in the military spendings crossed. And last year 2024, the latest numbers were 73 billion Euro on military spending versus 62 billion Euro in commercial spending on space. What is I calculated correctly, 10, 12, 15% are difference already as we see with all the initiatives on the military on the defense side. So it's pushing more and more and more. I mean at the moment, more on the Leo regime, a bit more. Okay. If you take out gps, which is obviously there, less on geo. I mean Geo we talk about in orbit servicing now a lot and then all this stuff or on orbit manufacturing and whatever the term is, Cis lunar a bit and then moon. No, no, I mean moon is there. Yeah, it's nice we see him on the night sky, but it's not the moon. And that's something I think we all have to understand. The moon does not have the interest for the military at the moment.
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Yeah, I mean, it seems to me that practical realities of what's going on right on Europe's borders right now seem to be definitely setting the agenda. I mean, that just makes sense. It truly does.
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Sadly, the other thing that was really a hot topic was the Entire partnership conversation because the understanding is clear, no one can do it alone. And even if the spending pots are bigger and bigger now earn space, no one can fulfill all of that alone. I mean unless you have your entire in house vertical integration. But for the most companies, most countries, it's not there. So we talk about partnerships here. And the other thing that coming back to the why is defense so interesting or interested in the space? I mean all our services that we use day in day out on earth are under threats, under heavy threats. And it includes the blue dot that we are following from A to B if I'm going to the supermarket and it doesn't know where it is because we can't use maps anymore. So the jamming, spoofing, all of the terms of disrupt signals are at the moment on the plate again. So we talk about resilience and hardening of services and all of the above. And that is a true dual use character. I mean we are not talking about the placements of weapons in space, not yet. It's just a matter of time. But yeah, it's, it will come definitely. Because space is a fragile thing and it is, it's a war fighting domain.
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We'll be right back.
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Welcome back. So many cool things about space tech. Where to even begin, right? One aspect that really makes me nerd out is how so many other advanced fields feed into the general space umbrella. Like is medicine your bag? Well, talk about the ultimate edge case. Space medicine is right there for you. Electromagnetism, that area of science that feels almost silly. It's so cool how magnets and electricity are so interrelated. I mean you wrap a wire into a coil and pass a magnet through the coil and you get a current. Come on Faraday, that's amazing. And so yes, super advanced electromagnetism research to generate super strong magnets, those are also super important. For advanced space applications. So it is with great interest that we learned today that scientists in China have now generated the strongest steady magnetic field ever achieved with a superconducting magnet. And it was 351,000 Gauss or 35 Tesla. And now don't sweat it. If you're not up on your magnetic induction scientific units, there will not be a quiz on it later. To put it all in perspective, this experiment again generated 351,000 gauss and the Earth's own magnetic field. Any guesses? Just 0.5 gauss. So this experiment was more than 700,000 times Earth's own magnetic field and far beyond Your probably around 50 Gauss kitchen fridge magnet. This breakthrough at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Plasma Physics in Hefei shows how high and low temperature superconducting coils can be nested together to reach record fields which while staying stable for about a half an hour. And to put it in perspective, for us space enthusiasts, this kind of research is especially notable because magnets at this kind of strength are key to future fusion propulsion systems, electromagnetic propulsion concepts, and even potentially magnetic shielding to protect astronauts from cosmic radiation. So here on Earth, it can also advance technologies like maglev train transportation, which is already widespread in use in China, as well as efficient power transmission that we could see one day supporting infrastructure maybe on the moon or Mars. And although some of the greatest minds of our time have wondered, leaping magnets, how do they work? Well, thankfully some other of our greatest minds are ready with the answers. And that's T minus Brought to you by N2K CyberWire. What do you think about T minus Space Daily? We would love to hear from you. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. The link is in the show notes Friends 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 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 a 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 Ibin. Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
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T minus.
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