Join us for an insightful discussion with Dr. Enbal Shacham, professor and associate dean for research at the College for Public Health and Social Justice at St. Louis University (a USGIF-accredited university) and a member of the USGIF Board of Directors. Dr. Shacham explores the intersection of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and health outcomes, particularly among populations living with HIV.

On August 29th, NASA made a significant decision to bring its astronauts back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft rather than Boeing's Starliner. However, things haven't gone as planned. Starliner will now return to Earth uncrewed on September 6th, marking a substantial commercial and reputational setback for Boeing. Should a catastrophic failure occur during re-entry or landing, it could spell the end of Boeing's Starliner program altogether.

Join Torsten Kriening, Publisher at SpaceWatch.Global, in an engaging conversation with Sandra Auchter, head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) office in Denver, Colorado. Recorded during the 39th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, this episode dives into the mission of the NGA, its role in providing crucial geospatial data for humanitarian efforts, and the integration with other federal agencies.

Rockets! Satellites! Asteroids! Let's blast off into the world of space investment with engineer-turned-investor Christian Ziach. He shares insights on Europe's space race, the challenges of refuelling satellites in orbit, and why asteroid mining might be trickier than we thought. Also: the Ariane 6 dilemma, space sustainability woes, how to turn scientists into entrepreneurs, the MASCOT mission's nail-biting success, and whether we're really ready to settle on Mars.

The space economy is undergoing a remarkable transformation; this explosive growth is creating a significant demand for a larger and more diverse workforce. As the industry continues to expand, it needs talented individuals with expertise in fields like engineering, science, telecommunications, and policy among others. The growing space economy will require more businesses and workers to support research, development, manufacturing, and operations. 

In episode 113 of the Space Café Podcast, host Markus explores a ground-breaking concept with Dr. Mary Hagedorn, a distinguished researcher at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. The discussion centers on the ambitious idea of creating a backup of Earth's biodiversity on the Moon.

SpaceTech startups raised just over $535m in VC investment globally in July, led by one big investment in each of the major spacetech VC ecosystems. The U.S. and China, the two biggest ecosystems for spacetech funding so far this year, each saw one megaround. In the U.S., broadband satellite provider Astranis raised $200m for their Omega constellation, and in China (Jiangsu) Deep Blue Aerospace raised 1b RMB ($139m) for liquid recovery and reuse launch vehicles.

Swiss battery startup BTRY has raised a 150,000 convertible loan from Swiss funding initiative VentureKick, raising their total fundraised for the year to over 1m CHF. BTRY previously raised 900,000 in January in a pre-seed financing led by High-Tech Gründerfonds with participation from Zürcher Kantonalbank.

In this first episode of *Space for Good*, our groundbreaking production focused on leveraging space technology for the benefit of the global community, Editor in Chief Emma Gatti engages in a thought-provoking discussion with Asia-Pacific space analyst Mani Thiru and Divya Sharma, the head of the Earth Observation Data Team at Satsur.

Many citizens and decision-makers continue to underestimate how reliant their daily lives and the economy at large have become on space infrastructure. Often, this is because the services powered or enabled by space are invisible or unknown to many. Yet satellite services have become thoroughly enmeshed with the global economy.