The Azeri ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Shahin Abdullayev, has told reporters that Azerbaijan seeks to enter into cooperative agreements with Saudi Arabia in satellite technology, petrochemicals, energy, agriculture, and tourism. “We launched two satellites and we reached advanced levels in this sector. We aim to be among the top producers of satellite parts,” Ambassador Abdullayev told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on 23 March 2018.

Chinese New Space company Kuang-Chi Science Ltd. and U.S. New Space pioneer Nanoracks have announced their partnership in developing new business outside of China for Kuang-Chi's Traveler near-space helium balloon platform for space tourism, Earth observation, small satellite launch, and scientific research.

In a boost to the Australian New Space sector, HorizonX, a venture capital subsidiary of U.S. aerospace giant Boeing, is set to invest U.S.$15 million in Australian enterprise Myriota, an Internet of Things (IoT) startup focusing on satellite communications to provide low-cost access to high-value data in remote locations.

Saudi Arabia is thought to be footing the financial bill for a hypersonic spaceplane concept capable of launching small satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO) being developed by Ukrainian space company Yuzhnoye, according to Russian space journalist Anatoly Zak writing in Popular Mechanics.

SpaceWatch.Global is providing a new weekly feature that provides a brief summary and roundup of space activities and satellite industry developments in Africa, Middle East, Asia-Pacific, and Russia and the CIS that have not been reported in-depth by our team.

Often cast in the shadow of the space activities of its Indian neighbour, Pakistan's space programme is all-too-often ignored. 2018, however, may be the year that Islamabad's space ambitions pass some critical milestones, albeit with help from its other neighbour, China.

Following the SpaceWatch.Global report that Israel’s Spacecom is looking to purchase a new satellite to be called AMOS-8, we can now report that Spacecom has selected U.S. satellite manufacturer Space Systems Loral (SSL), a subsidiary of Maxar Technologies, to build the new satellite, instead of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) as many expected.

In Spring 2017 Glavkosmos, a leading company representing the interests of the Russian space industry on the international market, announced the creation of an operator of commercial launches called Glavkosmos Launch Services, which will utilize the Soyuz-2 rocket launched from Russian-based cosmodromes. We talked to Alexander Serkin, CEO of the new company, about the reasons behind the establishing of the company and what goals it pursues on the international launch market.

Israeli fleet operator Spacecom is very close to purchasing a new satellite, named AMOS-8. This forthcoming purchase is a sign of a turnaround for Spacecom, as well as a bet on the troubled company’s future. Back-to-back spacecraft losses in 2015 and 2016 turned Spacecom from an expanding business into a struggling concern. Preceding the destruction of AMOS-6, Spacecom’s Russian-built AMOS-5 satellite ceased working in orbit due to a power system failure in 2015, just four years after its launch.

In part three of a three-part feature, Vitaly Egorov describes Russia’s modern posture in space and the challenges and possible ways of development of the national space industry. In this third and final part, Vitaly looks at how commercial alternatives can help fulfill Russia's space ambitions and honour its heritage.