Webb reveals baby Saturn?

Summary

T-Minus Space Daily: Episode Summary – "Webb Reveals Baby Saturn?"

Release Date: June 26, 2025

Introduction and Latest Space Developments
Timestamp 00:52
Host Maria Varmazes kicks off the episode with a roundup of significant happenings in the space industry:

• Axiom 4 Crew Docking with ISS: The Axiom 4 mission successfully reached the International Space Station, marking a pivotal moment for private spaceflight.

• Axiom Space and Skyroot Aerospace Partnership: A collaboration aimed at increasing India's access to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) through Skyroot Aerospace's advancements, including their Vikram S and upcoming Vikram 1 orbital vehicles. Maria highlights the strategic importance of this alliance for international space cooperation.

• SpaceVC Funding Milestones: Zona Space Systems secures $92 million in a new funding round, bringing their total to over $150 million. This infusion includes a Series B round led by Kraft Ventures and a $20 million StratFi award from SpaceWorks, the innovation arm of the US Space Force. Zona is developing a commercial satellite navigation system designed to surpass GPS in strength and resilience.

• Record Highs in Venture Capital Investment: According to PitchBook, global VC investment in space technology has surged to $5.9 billion in 2025, nearing the 2021 peak of $7.8 billion. However, the focus has shifted towards more mature startups, potentially challenging earlier-stage ventures.

Interview with Andy Crocker: Aerospace Executive and Author
Timestamp 09:28 – 21:18

Maria Varmazes welcomes Andy Crocker, an aerospace executive with three decades of experience, to discuss his new book, "The Five Timeless Values to Live Without Limits and Ignite Your Superpower." The conversation delves into Crocker's career, his motivations for writing the book, and the core principles he advocates.

• Crocker's Aerospace Journey:
  Timestamp 09:44
  Andy shares, "I've worked in the aerospace industry for about 30 years... a lot of my career has been in the advanced concepts arena, developing new concepts for NASA and commercial space initiatives."

• Genesis of "The Unconditionals":
  Timestamp 11:27
  Reflecting on personal and professional challenges, Crocker explains, "After two major competitions where we lost to SpaceX and Blue Origin, I had to ask, what is my purpose now? This introspection led to the creation of 'The Unconditionals.'"

• Core Values Explored in the Book:
  Timestamp 16:24
  Crocker outlines the five timeless values: love, gratitude, integrity, accountability, and endeavor. He emphasizes their importance in achieving a fulfilled life, stating, "These five really encompass the major aspects of what it takes to live in the world... it's not about the success, it's about being fulfilled, being happy."

• Unconditional Living:
  Timestamp 16:24
  Delving deeper, he explains, "Unconditional living means embracing these values no matter what's going on. For example, unconditional gratitude doesn't depend on our situation—it simply acknowledges life itself."

• Advice for Peers:
  Timestamp 19:48
  When asked what he wants his peers to take away from his work, Crocker advises, "If we can strive to be unconditional, to live unconditionally in those values, we'll have much richer relationships and more fulfilling lives."

Webb Space Telescope's Groundbreaking Discovery: Baby Saturn
Timestamp 21:58 – 24:23

Maria Varmazes shares exciting news about the James Webb Space Telescope's latest achievement:

• Direct Imaging of Exoplanet TWA7B:
  Webb may have captured its first direct image of an exoplanet, named TWA7B, a "baby Saturn" orbiting the young red dwarf TWA7, located 34 light-years away. This planet candidate is noteworthy for being nestled within a dusty debris disk and is likely about one-third the mass of Saturn.

• Significance of the Discovery:
  If confirmed, TWA7B would be the lightest exoplanet ever directly imaged and the first to be associated with sculpting a debris disk. This supports theories that planets play a crucial role in shaping the rings and gaps within such disks.

• Potential for Observing Planetary Formation:
  The star TWA7 is exceptionally young, approximately six million years old, providing a rare opportunity to observe planetary formation in real-time. Maria emphasizes, "This could mark the first glimpse of a Trojan disk, a potential cloud of dust traveling in sync with the planet."

• Webb's Mission Goals:
  The telescope's ability to directly image exoplanets aligns with its mission objectives. Maria expresses her enthusiasm: "While the telescope has already studied atmospheres of known exoplanets, this would be its first direct imaging discovery... that's pretty darn neat. Well done, Webb."

Conclusion
The episode of T-Minus Space Daily offers a comprehensive look into the latest advancements and collaborations in the space industry, an inspiring conversation with an industry veteran about personal and professional growth, and groundbreaking discoveries from one of humanity's most powerful telescopes. Whether you're a space enthusiast or a professional in the field, this episode provides valuable insights and highlights the dynamic nature of space exploration and technology.

Transcript

[Maria Varmazes]

You're listening to the N2K space network.

[Dave]

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[Maria Varmazes]

Today is June 26th, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T minus.

[Andy Crocker]

T minus 20 seconds.

[Maria Varmazes]

The Axiom 4 crew reach the international space station Axiom Space to increase India's access to LEO with Space Skyroot Aerospace partnership. SpaceVC funding is on track to hit record highs this year. Zona raises $92 million in a new funding round, Firefly Aerospace gets approval for orbital launches from S Range in Sweden and our gu Our guest today is Andy Crocker. He's an aerospace executive with three decades of experience across human and robotic exploration, hypersonics and missile defense. And now he's adding author to his title list with his new book called the Five Timeless Values to Live without limits and Ignite your Superpower. Don't miss our chat in the second half of the show today. Thanks for joining me on this lovely Thursday. Hope you're having a good one. Let's dive in. The Swedish Space Corporation and US Based Firefly Aerospace are moving forward with plans for satellite launches from the S Range Space center in Kiruna, Sweden. A technology Safeguards agreement signed on June 20 by Sweden and the United States enables United States commercial space launches from Swedish spaceports to namely S Range. The agreement outlines requirements for handling US Sensitive technology and is only the sixth such agreement that the US has signed globally. With this agreement in place, Firefly Aerospace now plans to launch its Alpha rocket from S Range's Launch Complex 3C. Infrastructure development is already underway, including tracking and control systems, security facilities and a launch control center. Executives from both organizations said the agreement removes regulatory barriers and supports the development of an orbital launch capability in mainland Europe. Charlotte Sund, CEO at ssc, said in a press release that adding this capability in mainland Europe will strengthen Sweden and Europe's capabilities and competitiveness in the space arena, as well as our relations with the United States and NATO. Zona Space Systems has announced $92 million in new funding, bringing its total raised to over $150 million this latest raise includes a Series B led by Kraft ventures and a $20 million StratFi award from SpaceWorks, which is the innovation arm of the US Space Force. Zona is developing a commercial satellite navigation system in low Earth orbit that's designed to offer encrypted centimeter level positioning and nanosecond level timing. The company launched its first production class satellite, the Pulsar Zero, this week on the SpaceX Transporter 14 rideshare mission. The Pulsar Constellation aims to improve on GPS by broadcasting signals up to 150 times stronger, with better resilience to jamming and spoofing. The system will also work with existing GPS chipsets via firmware update. Xona says its service will begin with early customers in 2026, with full constellation deployment to follow. Moving on Now According to PitchBook, global VC investment in space technology has reached US$5.9 billion in 2025, putting the year on track to surpass the previous 2021 record of $7.8 billion. However, funding is increasingly concentrated in more mature startups. With deal count lagging behind, last year's venture capitalists are placing larger bets on proven space companies rather than seed stage speculative ventures. This funding surge does highlight strong investor confidence in space infrastructure such as satellite communications, launch systems, on orbit servicing and earth observation, but it also signals that earlier stage startups may face greater challenges in breaking in. It is something to keep an eye on for sure. Axiom Space has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with India based Skyroot Aerospace to collaborate on expanded access to low Earth orbit. The partnership leverages Skyroot's status as India's first private rocket launcher with its Vikram s and upcoming Vikram 1 orbital vehicle and aims to integrate Indian launch capabilities with Axiom managed missions and early elements of Axiom Station. It is a fascinating alliance and certainly a strategic move in international space cooperation, providing a blueprint for interoperable LEO launch and orbital services across US And Indian markets, especially as Indian space capabilities in the private sector continue their strong upward trajectory. And speaking of Axiom, the SpaceX Dragon capsule named Grace successfully delivered the Axiom 4 private astronaut crew to the International Space Station today, marking the first ISS visitors from India, Poland and hungary in over 40 years. The mission was led by veteran astronaut and former NASA commander Peggy Whitson, and the crew will now spend two weeks conducting experiments and outreach while Grace is docked at the station's Harmony Module. And that's it for our intel briefing for you today on this Thursday. As always, there are more items for you to review in our selected reading section of our Show Notes. But check out the Show Notes in your podcast app or on our website, which is [e-mail] 1 is an in depth report on the latest on the EU space rules that are in the works and another is on how, and their words, not mine, how broken NASA IT Security is. Not a fun read but an important one. Hey T minus crew. If your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership or recruit talent, T minus can help. We would love to hear from you. Just send us an [e-mail] or a note through our website and we can connect about building a program to meet your goals.

[Andy Crocker]

Foreign.

[Dave]

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[Maria Varmazes]

Crocker Aerospace executive and author of a new book called the five Timeless Values To Live without limits and ignite your superpower. He spoke with me about this book and why he wrote it.

[Andy Crocker]

I've worked in the aerospace industry for about 30 years. I have worked in missile defense and hypersonics, but the predominance of my career has been on the civil space and some commercial space side. So a lot of work for NASA and a lot of my career has been in the advanced concepts arena, so developing the new concepts. You know when space shuttle was being retired we were looking at what's going to replace the space shuttle, so coming up with concepts for that and then more recently with human landing system and going back to the moon and all the things related to that worked quite a bit in that area. So that's been a big part of my career, but it's all been in space.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Andy. And we're gonna be talking about your career, but also something that you've more recently done and you've written a book. Please tell me. Give me the elevator pitch. I'm sure you know this inside and out as an author. The elevator pitch for your book, please.

[Andy Crocker]

Right, yeah. The book is called the Unconditionals, and it in part came out of some events in my career. And certainly there are a lot of parts within the book that discuss aspects of my career or other things within space that explain the various concepts in the book. But the elevator pitch really is. The unconditionals are the values that I think are critical for living a fulfilled life, no matter what's going on in our lives.

[Maria Varmazes]

I would love to know the genesis of this book. So was there something that happened in your life or a series of things that made you go, this book is in me, and I need to write it down? What was that?

[Andy Crocker]

Yeah, couple of things. I think the long term is that I've always loved writing. I always had thought about putting together ideas that I wanted to share with my kids about what's important in life. So my. My son was a senior in high school a couple years ago, and the first day of school, kids came home, we were asking about class, and my son said, I'm a senior. And I was like, wow, I really need to get on this if I'm gonna. If I'm gonna convey to my kids. The other aspect is in my career, like I said, I've worked ton of great programs, really exciting programs, but the most fun in terms of individual aspects, but also team aspects, especially team aspects, is working on the human landing system. So about seven years ago, NASA decided, hey, we really need to go back to the moon with humans again. And this time for real. Right. It's been on and off again throughout my career, but the company I was working with jumped in and we. We got to compete, and we were a big part of that. And after two major competitions, we lost. You know, we competed against Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and had a great concept and had a great time, but ultimately we lost. And when you get through a project like that, five years of dedicated time where you feel like you're chasing the holy Grail for space and you don't quite get there, you realize you're not going to get there, at least in that form. It's devastating. So coming away from that and sort of stepping back and saying, what is it I'm going to do next? And I had this grand purpose that was getting humans back to the moon and this time staying there and establishing a presence. And it's not going to happen the way I'd envisioned. So what's my purpose now? And even more than that, what is purpose? You know, what is my life about? So those things combining, you know, wanting to share with the kids and then. And then saying what. What do I really think matters? I decided to put it down on paper and it. It actually sort of evolved into the book that it became into the Unconditionals.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's amazing. I really admire that you took what must have been just a very, very hard experience and turning that into something that you can be proud of in the end. I just wanted to recognize that because that is extraordinarily difficult.

[Andy Crocker]

And also thank you for saying that. And I will say I consider myself very lucky because we lost, but I'm still an aerospace engineer. I still get to work on space projects. I still get to work with great people. One of the more disappointing parts of the project is this great team that we had put together. You know, we all had to go find new things to do, and a lot of them left the company. And so losing that really great team was. Was one of the more difficult parts of it. But the good news is, you know, everybody got to continue on with their careers.

[Maria Varmazes]

That is a very important thing to keep in perspective. You do need to take a minute, and the minute can be a couple years in some cases and go, where do I go from here? So I guess that's my question. How. How did you figure that out?

[Andy Crocker]

I think it's an ongoing process for me. It. I immediately jumped into another project, worked in hypersonics. Great project, but. But that lasted about a year and I said, I want to do something different. So actually changed companies and. And did that for about a year. And actually just in the last month, it's literally been a month. Yesterday I stepped back from aerospace and stepped away. And I'm taking time to say, okay, what do I want to do next? Do I really want to continue in aerospace, either in consulting or in project management or business development role, or do I really want to go whole hog into these values and try to convey these values through, whether it's consulting or teaching or anything? Because I really do believe. And the process of writing the book and Then figuring out how to market, you know, both. Both in a literal marketing sense, but also just talking about it, I've come to believe more and more how important these values are.

[Maria Varmazes]

I'd love to know the title of the book being the Unconditionals. I think that's a fascinating title. A lot of thoughts come to mind when I. When I hear that phrase of, you know, like unconditional, like these imm. Immutable truths. Right. Things that guideposts, perhaps. These are just things that I think of when I hear that. Can you tell me a bit about what. What does it mean in the context of what you wrote?

[Andy Crocker]

Right. So really there are two core aspects of the book that, you know, as, as the book evolved, as it turned into what it became, some of it was clear to me early on, and some of it really didn't become clear to later, later on. So. So the first part is the five values and those Love, gratitude, integrity, accountability, and endeavor. I think those five and you know, everybody has their own ideas of what really matters, but to me, those five really encompass the major aspects of what it takes to live in the world. And eventually, if we do it right to be fulfilled as people, what will likely come along with that is success in a career and relationships and whatever. But it's not about the success. It's about being fulfilled, being happy, and, and being a model to the people that you're around in. In how to live. So those five values are kind of the first core piece. And the other is. Is unconditional. And that's the piece that really. It took me till the very end of the process to figure out. You know, I felt like I was missing something. And what I. What I discovered is unconditional living, which is embracing these values and using them as our guide no matter what's going on. And let me give an example. When we have gratitude, unconditional gratitude means it doesn't matter what we have or don't have. It doesn't matter what other people have. It doesn't matter what our situation is. We should have gratitude because A, we're alive, most importantly. And then all the things that we do have, everyone, no matter their situation, they may be in a bad situation, but they have something to hold on to that they can be grateful for. And that gratitude can open up opportunities for so many other things. So the unconditionality is the aspect that I really wanted to make sure is important. And that's why I call it the unconditionals, because I really believe that if we can strive to be unconditional, to live unconditionally and particularly in those values. We'll never get there perfectly right. We'll never always be that way. But if we can strive for that, it will enable us to have much richer relationships, much more fulfilling careers, much more fulfilling lives in general.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, yeah. I'm struck by what you're saying and I'm thinking, taking it back to sort of the origin story of your book. Also many people who, peers who are in similar situations to what you described that you went through working on in aerospace, as we know of these huge multi year projects and often the outcome is not what you hoped for or you can do everything right and your solution is outstanding and some budget guy somewhere decided no or other outside factors that have nothing to do with the excellence of your work cause it to cease to be. And that can be absolutely devastating. So I guess I'm wondering specifically to people, you know, your peers, what do you want them to take away from your work? And like, what would you tell them?

[Andy Crocker]

Yeah, great question. And you're right. There are so many things that we depend on to reach that success in the terms that the world normally defines it. You know, making money, getting promotions, you know, becoming well known or, or whatever it is. And because those things are outside our control, as you said, very often they go in directions where we don't want them to go. And so we lose the path that we thought was the right path for us. If we can instead try to think and speak and behave and act in ways that are unconditional. That is focused on what shouldn't change. And that's really what shouldn't change is who we are. And that means, you know, having love, having gratitude, having integrity, accountability and endeavor unconditionally. Those things are going to come and go. But we are still working on who we are and moving in the direction of becoming better people. And those will continue to be more and more fulfilling for us, for the people we're around and really for our community.

[Maria Varmazes]

We'll be right back.

[Dave]

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[Maria Varmazes]

Welcome back. You know, it's been a hot minute since we checked in with what the Webb Space Telescope has been up to. And whoa, what's this? Webb may have just snapped its first direct image of an exoplanet. And congratulations everybody. It's a baby Saturn spotted orbiting the young red dwarf TWA7. This planet candidate that's currently named TWA7B was spotted nestled in a dusty debris disk just 34 light years away from us. It's faint, cold, and likely weighs in at about 1 of Saturn's mass. And crucially, it is right where astronomers predicted that a planet might be sculpting the rings of dust around its star. If this finding is confirmed, TWA 7B would be the lightest planet ever imaged outside of our solar system, and the first directly tied to shaping a debris disk. Its discovery adds weight to the long held theories about how planets carve out rings and gaps as they form. It could also mark the first glimpse of what's called a Trojan disk, which is a potential cloud of dusk traveling in sync with the planet. Just as scientists hoped, Webb's high contrast Miri, or mid infrared instrument, is an eagle eyed hunter for young distant worlds just like this one. And a reminder that spotting exoplanets is a key goal of Webb's mission. And while the telescope has already studied the atmospheres of known exoplanets, this would be its first direct imaging discovery. The star TWA 7's nearly face on orientation towards us made it an ideal test case. And because this star is cosmically young, only about 6 million years old, a mere baby. It also offers a rare chance for us to watch planetary formation in progress. So follow up observations should help confirm the planet's status and deepen our understanding of how planetary systems emerge and evolve. And let's zoom way out for a second. While we have seen exoplanets before, if this one is confirmed, this will be the first time we've ever seen an image of a planet outside of our solar system. With Webb specifically and well, I gotta say, that's pretty darn neat. Well done. Web.

[Andy Crocker]

Foreign.

[Maria Varmazes]

And that's it for T minus for June 26, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show [e-mail] we're proud that N2K and podcasts like T minus are part of the daily routine of many 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 Senior Producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're 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. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T minus.

[Dave]

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