← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
Starship and IM2 meet abrupt ends.
00:26:44
Starship’s flight 8 ends in a RUD. Intuitive Machines’ second lunar mission concluded. ispace and SpaceData partnering on a lunar digital twin. And more.
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- [00:02]
Maria Varmazes
You're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:10]
Dave
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- [00:54]
Maria Varmazes
Today is March 7, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T min T minus 20 seconds. StarCatcher and Space Florida partner on the first Space Energy Grid 4 MDA Space Shares Q4 and fiscal year 2024 financial results ispace and space data to collaborate on Lunar Surface Digital Twin creation intuitive machines IM2 mission lunar lander Athena lands 250 meters from its intended landing site test flight 8 for SpaceX's Starship ends in a dramatic fireball over the Caribbean again. And it's Friday, so that means our partners@nasaspaceflight.com bring us the weekly Space Traffic report. They'll share details on all the launches from the last seven days and take a look at what's to come in the next week. Stick around for that later in the Happy Friday everybody. You made it. We have a lot of information to unpack From a busy 24 hours in the space industry, so let's dive into today's intel briefing, shall we? And we're starting with the eighth test flight of SpaceX's Starship rocket. It got off to a great start. The launch looked flawless. The amazing Mechazilla arms caught the returning super heavy booster. And then a repeat of Flight 7 and the Starship exploded less than 10 minutes into the flight. The fireball sent debris across the Caribbean, causing the FAA to rapidly activate a debris response area. The FAA shared that it briefly slowed aircraft outside the area where the space vehicle debris was falling or stopped aircraft at their departure location. And for its part, SpaceX shared in a post on X that their team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre planned contingency responses. It was a repeat of the last flight Mishap of the enormous Starship system SpaceX says they plan to review the data from the flight test to better understand what went wrong this time. The company was already working on a mishap investigation into what caused the earlier incident, but was allowed by the FAA to proceed with the eighth flight test before completing the inquiry. We are just glad that no one was caught in the debris field and we hope that the cleanup operation is quickly assembled. And hate to be cliche here, but yeah, space is hard. SpaceX isn't the only company scrambling to find out what went wrong with their mission yesterday. And yeah, like you, our team was all tuned in to watch Intuitive Machines IM two mission attempt to land on the moon. And if you were tuned in like we were, no doubt you too were scratching your heads. Kind of like the team at Mission Control in Houston wondering what was the fate of the lunar lander Athena. At a press conference held later in the day by NASA and Intuitive Machines, we got this update.
- [04:29]
Steve Altemis
Well, good afternoon everybody. Any time that you ship a spacecraft to Florida for flight and end up a week later operating on the moon, I declare that a success. I will say that we shipped out, we had a great processing down with SpaceX at the PPF or payload processing Facility with them. We went through wet dress rehearsal and launched on February 26th. Like they indicated, we had a seven day mission transit to the surface. Now, we think that we've been very successful to this point. However, I do have to tell you that we don't believe we're in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon yet again.
- [05:14]
Maria Varmazes
And that was Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemis. And it seems that the spacecraft landed 250 meters from its intended landing site inside of a crater. Intuitive Machines were quick to state that although Athena did not land where they intended, this was the southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved. A follow up press release from the company explained that images downlinked from Athena on the lunar surface confirmed that the spacecraft was on its side. After landing, mission controllers were able to accelerate several program and payload milestones, including NASA's Prime 1 suite before the lander's batteries depleted. With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines says it does not expect Athena to recharge. The mission has now concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission. But it is not all doom and gloom, everybody. This southern pole region has been avoided due to its rugged terrain and limited direct communication with the Earth up until now. And so Intuitive Machines believes the insights and achievements from IM2 will open this region for further space exploration. And let's stay with lunar missions for a minute. Japan's ISPACE and Space Data, which is a company specializing in big data Applications for Space Development have announced a strategic collaboration to facilitate the creation of lunar digital twins to simulate the physical surface of the moon. The companies say that the collaboration aims to create new business opportunities using data to reduce costs and risks associated with lunar exploration and future lunar activities. They are aiming to develop a high precision topographical model of the moon based on lunar data acquired by I Space's exploration mission. ISPACE and Space Data plan to promote the commercial use of lunar data and aim to build a digital twin platform that supports further expansion of lunar exploration. I Space's second lunar lander is expected to touch down on the moon's surface in June. MDA Space has shared their financial reports from the fourth quarter fiscal year 2024, the Canadian Space Company reported full year revenues of 1.08 billion Canadian dollars, up 33.7% year over year. This figure exceeded the company's full year revenue guidance. The company says that it has a solid backlog of approximately $5 billion and is well positioned to deliver another successful year in 2025. Congratulations to them. Starcatcher has announced a strategic partnership with Space Florida to advance its proposed space energy grid. As part of this partnership, Starcatcher will conduct a large scale demonstration later this summer of its power beaming technology at Space Florida's launch and landing facility. Starcatcher says this demonstration will serve as a critical proof point for the technology accelerating the development of an operational space power grid and driving adoption among satellite operators. And we will be speaking to Starcatcher CEO Andrew Rush on the show in the coming weeks. So be sure to join us for more on their planned space based energy grid on our Deep space show airing March 22nd. Mark your calendars. And of course there will be more on SpaceX's launch and the IM2 mission covered in our Space Traffic Report coming up shortly. But right now N2K senior producer Alice Carruth has some additional stories for you to read at your leisure.
- [08:41]
Alice Carruth
Yes I do Maria. Today we have two additional links in the Selected Reading section of our show notes. One on an announcement from Planet Labs on their partnership with Anthropic on using AI to turn geospatial imagery into actionable insights, and another from Yorkspace updating their progress for the Tyndall mission.
- [08:59]
Maria Varmazes
And those links are in our show Notes as always. And where else?
- [09:02]
Alice Carruth
Alice we always include links on the episode page of our website. Just head to space.m2k.com and click on this episode title.
- [09:10]
Maria Varmazes
Hey T minus Crew, Tune in tomorrow for T minus Deep Space. It's our show for extended interviews, special editions and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. Tomorrow we have Jonathan Nalder talking about his space education outreach programs in Australia. Check it out while you're hanging out at south by Southwest this weekend in Austin, Texas. Or heading to D.C. for satellite, which kicks off on Monday, or preparing for spacecom uk, which also kicks off in London next week. What's busy in the space industry right now, isn't it? You don't want to miss it.
- [09:54]
Dave
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- [11:08]
Maria Varmazes
Every Friday, our partners at NASAspaceFlight.com bring us the space traffic Report.
- [11:16]
Alice Carruth
I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF and this is your weekly space traffic report for T minus Space. We're starting off the week on Mars. Okay, maybe not on Mars, but 884 kilometers from its surface because that is where NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft flew by the Red Planet on March 1 at 17:57 UTC. It was only a short encounter as the spacecraft whizzed past the planet at 24.5 kilometers per second. Now, the reason for this flash visit was so that it could use the Martian gravity to change its trajectory around the sun. As the spacecraft passed by Mars gravitational pull slowed down Europa Clipper's velocity by 2 kilometers per second. This move is, is therefore known as a gravity assist. Europa Clipper is now on a trajectory to pass by Earth in December 2026 for another gravity assist that will put it on a path to intercept Jupiter's orbit in April of 2030. While it'll take years before Europa Clipper gets to study the Jovian moon, mission scientists took the Mars flyby as an opportunity to test the spacecraft's thermal imagers and radar instrument. Next up, we had a moon landing. Firefly's Blue Ghost lander touched down in Mare Crisium on the lunar surface on March 2nd at 8:34 UT. This marked the first fully successful commercial lunar landing and the first time since the 1970s that the US has landed on the Moon without issue. This is a truly impressive feat, made even more remarkable by the fact that this was Firefly's very first shot at it. Since then, the lander has been operating its 10 NASA payloads, and eight of them have already met their mission objectives. Firefly plans to continue operating the payloads throughout the rest of the lunar day, making the most of the available sunlight. Back on Earth we had a Soyuz launch on March 2. The rocket lifted off from Plisetsk in Russia at 22:22 UTC, carrying a new navigation satellite into medium Earth orbit. This was the second next generation Glonass K2 satellite, bringing enhanced accuracy to the Russian navigation system. We also had a Falcon 9 launch this week. Unsurprisingly, the payload was a batch of starLink satellites, adding 13 direct to cell satellites and eight normal V2 minis to the Constellation. The mission lifted off from Florida on March 3rd at 2:24 universal time. The booster for this mission was B1086, which flew for the fifth time it landed successfully on the deck of droneship. Just read the instructions but sadly misunderstood those instructions as it toppled over after the landing. According to SpaceX, this was due to a post landing fire that broke one of the legs and eventually led to the loss of the booster. When the drone ship returned to port, it became clear that there wasn't much left of it. The poor thing even seemed to have partially melted in the fire, and only its engine section appeared relatively intact. With this mission, SpaceX has launched a total of 8,060 Starlink satellites, of which 965 have found their way back to Earth and 6,382 have moved into their operational orbits. For the next launch we go to French guiana, where Ariane 6 lifted off on its second ever mission. On March 6, the rocket lit its Vulcan engines, followed by its two side boosters and lifted off at 16:24 Universal Time. The payload for this mission was a reconnaissance satellite for the French government. The satellite, known as CSO3, is the third satellite in the composant Spatial Optique System, which translates to optical space component. With the addition of this latest satellite, the system is now completed. As mentioned before, this was Ariane 6's second flight and its first operational mission. Unlike on its first flight, this time the auxiliary power unit was able to restart in orbit and the second stage VINCI engine relit after satellite deployment back down to Earth for disposal. This is an ability that the cryogenic upper stage for Ariane 5 did not have, and a burn that failed on the first flight of Ariane 6. I can't believe I'm saying this, but now let's go back to the moon for another moon landing. Unfortunately, this one didn't go as well as the previous one. This was the IM2 mission from Intuitive Machines, which launched last week, whose lander named Athena, attempted to land on the lunar surface on March 6 at around 17:30 UTC. But a confirmation of successful landing did not follow. Instead, there seemed to be confusion in mission control about the lander's orientation and whether its engine was still firing. It was later confirmed that the lander did not end up on the lunar surface in its correct attitude. This is unfortunate, as the company's previous attempt suffered a similar fate. The IM1 mission ended up on its side, but the mission's fate became clear within a day after landing. Athena had touched down 250 meters from its intended landing site, and a picture confirmed that it ended up on its side. Athena's batteries are now depleted, and in its current orientation, the lander's solar panels won't be able to generate enough power to recharge. As a result, Intuitive Machines declared the mission over. There is a sliver of good news, though. Intuitive Machines was able to speedrun some payload milestones while Athena still had power, so some of the payloads might still have returned useful data. Intuitive Machines will attempt to land Its next mission, Im3, early next year. Hopefully that one will not only land, but also stay upright and closing. Out the week, we had another repeat of a previous failure. On March 6, at 23:30 universal time, Starship lifted off from Texas for its eighth test flight. @ first, everything seemed to go pretty much as planned. All 33 Raptor engines of Super Heavy Booster 15 ignited successfully at T0. The following stage separation went without issue, and while two engines failed to light on Super Heavy's boostback burn, the booster did successfully return to its launch site and landed on the towers. Catch arms or chopsticks? Proving once again the booster's engine out capability. After separating from booster 15 ship, 34's flight initially also seemed to go well, but problems arose on the ship's engine section when engines began shutting down abruptly near the end of what was going to be the ship's ascent burn. A fire developed which eventually led to an explosion and loss of control of the ship. The ship subsequently broke up and re entered in pieces. Sadly, this was an all too familiar sight as the previous flight failed in a very similar fashion and also at a very similar time in the flight. As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration had to move air traffic out of the way and is now requiring SpaceX to perform a mishap investigation Going into Next week we'll have the launch of NASA's spectrophotometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and ices Explorer or SphereX. On March 9, a Falcon 9 is set to lift the telescope into space from California with four additional small satellites for NASA's Punch mission. These missions were originally slated to launch last week, but were delayed to diagnose some issues with the launch vehicle. If plans hold on, the ninth Falcon 9 is set to lift off at 3:09 UTC. All five satellites in this flight will be deployed into sun synchronous orbits and the booster will return to its launch site and land at Landing Zone 4. Shortly after that, another Falcon 9 is expected to lift off from the other side of the country. This time the payload will be another batch of Starlink direct to cell satellites. The four hour launch window opens on March 9th at 4.10 UTC. We'll also have an electron launch next week. This mission, dubbed the Lightning God Reigns, will launch from Rocket Lab's own launch complex in New Zealand and carry a Synthetic Aperture radar satellite into low Earth orbit. For The Japanese company, IQPS T0 is expected during a two hour launch window starting on March 10th at midnight UTC. Back in California, we'll have another Falcon 9 launch. It's the next transporter mission to carry a whole bunch of payloads into space for SpaceX's small sat rideshare program. The window for this mission opens on March 12th at 6.39 UTC and lasts 46 minutes. Next up will be a Starlink mission from Florida launching more direct to cell satellites into low Earth orbit. Liftoff is expected during a four hour window starting at 12:18 universal time on March 11th. Now back to Mars for another flyby. Yes, we just had one last week, but this time it'll be for the European Space Agency's HERA mission. The spacecraft is on its way to asteroid Didymos and its companion Dimorphos, but To get there, it'll have to swing by the red planet. On March 12, Hera will make its closest approach to Mars at 1250 UTC, at roughly 5,000 kilometers from the planet's surface. What's more, it'll pass even closer to the Martian moon Deimos at a distance of 1,000 kilometers. Back on Earth, NASA and SpaceX are getting ready for the Crew 10 mission. NASA astronauts Anne McClane and Nicole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov are scheduled to ride Dragon to the ISS on March 12th. Liftoff is set for 23:48 UTC from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. And wrapping up the week, we'll have another StarLink mission on March 13. This launch will be conducted from the cape during a four hour window opening at 20:27 Universal Time. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF, and that's your weekly space traffic Report. Now back to T minus.
- [20:23]
Maria Varmazes
We'll be right back.
- [20:30]
Dave
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- [21:49]
Maria Varmazes
Welcome back. If yesterday proved anything a bit of a theme in today's episode, huh? It's that the old space is hard or moon is hard chestnut is pretty true. So it's not often that I get to say this, but. But a new finding from ISRO's Chandrayaan 3 mission might actually be telling us that, well, the moon might not be quite as hard as we thought. In fact, the moon might be hiding a little bit of a nice secret that Chandrayaan3 just uncovered. Namely, easier access to moon ice than expected. Surface temperature data gathered around the Chandrayaan 3 landing site was what yielded this insight. A team at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad took a look at that data and found a wide range of temperature values in places that they didn't expect, with a large difference between places that were actually very close to each other. The researchers say that this data suggests that pole facing slopes that are generally shaded from the sun on the moon may have lunar ice at much shallower depths than previously thought. That would mean more extractable ice and of course, water available to future lunar missions, which is especially very, very good news for long term lunar missions that will need that water to make fuel, conduct experiments and stay alive. It'd also free up some weight of what we might need to bring with us from Earth too. Good news indeed. And that's it for T minus for March 7, 2025, brought to you by N2K CyberWire for additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@spare.n2k.com we'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures that we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space2k.com we're privileged 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 makes it easy for companies to optimize your biggest investment your people. We make you smarter about your teams while making your teams smarter. Learn how@n2k.com N2K Senior Producer is Alice Carouse. Our producer is Liz Stokes or mixed by Elliott 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. We'll see you next time.
- [24:28]
Alice Carruth
T min Foreign.
- [24:43]
Dave
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