NASA has launched its Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument as a payload on Intelsat 40E aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The instrument aims to provide unprecedented resolution of monitoring major air pollutants – down to four square miles. As a result, it also aims to improve life on Earth by revolutionizing the way scientists observe air quality from space. 

The Council of the European Union (The Council) have adopted conclusions on ‘Space traffic management: state of play’. The conclusions address the challenges of an increasingly congested orbital space and the need for a common approach to ensure a safe and sustainable European space policy. As a result, the conclusions stress the urgency of developing an EU space traffic management (STM) approach, which will contribute to space safety, sustainability and security, and welcome the progress made so far.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the appointment of two new Directors by its 22 Member States at its council meeting. As a result, Laurent Jaffart will become the next Director of Connectivity and Secure Communications, and Marco Ferrazzani will become the next Director of Internal Services.

UK-based orbital launch services company, Orbex, has won £3.3 million in funding from the UK Space Agency as part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) “Boost!” initiative. The initiative, which is part of ESA’s Commercial Space Transportation Services and Support programme, aims to further the development of world-leading space launch technologies.

Spire Global, Inc. has received a multi-million euro contract from EUMETSAT, Europe’s meteorological satellite agency, to provide radio occultation (RO) data. The contract is for an initial period of two years, from 2024-2026, with three optional, one-year extensions. The award follows a successful pilot program, which demonstrated the benefits of Spire’s RO data for weather forecasting accuracy and value. The Company’s RO data provides information about the vertical profiles of pressure, humidity and temperature across all points of the globe, including in the most remote regions and open oceans.

Helicity Space, a commercial space company developing in-space propulsion and power technology based on fusion power, has raised $5 million in seed round funding from several new investors. The successful raise enables Helicity Space to advance its proprietary technology, the Helicity Drive, which consists of scalable fusion propulsion engines that should enable safer, faster, reusable, and more fuel-efficient travel into deep space.

ispace, inc. and Orbit Fab, Inc have announced an agreement to collaborate on in-space propellant harvesting and delivery for future missions to the Moon. The partnership will leverage each company’s unique and complementary capabilities to develop effective propellants and fuels from resources in space, such as water, ice, and lunar regolith or fine and rocky soils found on the surface of the Moon.

Lunasonde has announced the launch timeline for its third satellite to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The San Xavier satellite will fly on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Transporter-11 in the summer of 2024 via launch provider Exolaunch. It is the company’s first on-orbit test of its proprietary very low-frequency radar technological stack capable of detecting subsurface mineral deposits up to two kilometers underground.

Thales Alenia Space has signed a multi-mission contract with PT Len Industri to provide a state-of-the-art Earth observation constellation combining both radar and optical sensors and dedicated to the Indonesian Ministry of Defence (MoD). As a result, both companies will join forces to deploy an end-to-end system including space and ground segment in Indonesia.

The U.S. Space Force, the U.S. European Command, and the U.S. Africa Command have launched the U.S. Space Forces Europe and Africa component, their newest service component. The component was established to ​​support the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in an expansion of USSF’s growing reach into combatant commands.