Armagh Observatory and Planetarium announced on the 22nd of March their findings on how asteroid composition will help to further understand how asteroids form and how best to alter their trajectory. Their research has been studying the outcome of the Double-Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a space mission conducted by NASA and ESA that hit the Didymos-Dimorphos double asteroid last year. 

During his visit to Brazil, Norway’s Minister of Climate and Environment, Mr. Espen Barth Eide announced that NICFI’s Satellite Data Program is extended until September 2024. After 2.5 years of the program, it has become evident that public access to high resolution satellite images leads to more effective rainforest protection, Eide said.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. an American end-to-end space transportation company, has been awarded a $112 million NASA contract to deliver multiple lunar payloads in 2026. This is Firefly’s second task order won under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The company will use its Blue Ghost spacecraft in a two-stage configuration to place a satellite into lunar orbit and then deliver two research payloads on the far side of the Moon.

XCAM Ltd, a UK-based designer and manufacturer of digital camera systems, announced on the 22nd of March that they have received significant further funding from ESA for the manufacture of its Space Particle Fall Out (PFO) Monitor. This has come after an eight-year technical development programme where XCAM and ESA have collaborated. Space PFO is due to be ready to launch into space inside a rocket launch vehicle in the summer of 2025. It will be the first instrument to measure particulate contamination inside a rocket. 

As space activities and innovative technologies emerge around the world and the space economy becomes increasingly global, it is worth investigating how space services and applications can support strategic foresight and its embedding into policymaking. Understandably, amidst all this trouble on planet Earth, it is perhaps easy to forget how important space has become to us and our future.

Axiom Space has revealed the prototype spacesuit astronauts will wear during NASA’s Artemis III mission. NASA selected the company to develop the modern suits and the prototype was revealed on the 15th of March during an event at Space Center Houston in Texas. 

Researchers and students of the Tartu Observatory at the University of Tartu have begun the development of Estonia’s first lunar rover, designed to take Estonian technology to the Moon at the end of this decade or the beginning of the next. 

Warpspace announced on the 15th of March that Hiromitsu Azuma has been newly appointed as Representative Director and CEO. Azuma has experience as an entrepreneur from startup to exit. In addition, as COO and General Manager at Warpspace, he has worked closely with Tsunemachi- who took the position of CEO in 2019- to expand the business while overseeing the practical aspects of Warpspace’s business, finance, and technology. 

DCUBED, a German NewSpace component and subsystem company, is developing deployable and body-mounted solar arrays for two orbital transfer vehicles of the space logistics company Atomos. DCUBED (Deployables Cubed GmbH) specalises in mechanisms, solar arrays and deployables for Nano and SmallSats. The deployable solar arrays will supply the spacecraft with high power without sacrificing launch space. The Atmos Space orbital transfer vehicles are Meson and Gluon.

Voyager Space, an American space technology company announced on the 13th of March the acquisition of ZIN technologies Inc. (ZIN), an engineering, design and integration company providing human-related spaceflight systems and monitoring solutions. This acquisition is part of Voyager Space’s expansion of space infrastructure and technology capabilities to further its Starlab development efforts.