Luxembourg, 28 April 2021. – JUICE is on its way: the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer mission led by the European Space Agency (ESA) left Airbus’ satellite integration centre in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and is now on its way to the Large Space Simulator (LSS) chamber of ESA in Noordwijk, Netherlands, Airbus said.

Luxembourg, 27 April 2021. – Elon Musk shocked his audience when he admitted that “a bunch of people will probably die” in the attempt to get to Mars. “You might die, it’s going to be uncomfortable and probably won’t have good food,” Musk told Peter Diamandis, the founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation for scientific discovery, according to numerous media reports.

Luxembourg, 27 April 2021. – The European Space Agency (ESA) has asked a consortium around Inmarsat to develop a natural disaster early warning system. The London-based satellite operator, the research organization SINTEF and the Norwegian company Geonor have been awarded a three-year contract with ESA, Inmarsat said.

Luxembourg, 27 April 2021. – “Faster and farther”: NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity flew a third time, rising five meters high and 50 meters far at a top speed of 2 meters per second, the U.S. space agency said. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California received a first bunch of data and images that the Perseverance rover, serving as a communications base station, captured.

Luxembourg, 26 April 2021. – Arianespace launched 36 OneWeb satellites on a Soyuz rocket, bringing the entire OneWeb constellation to 182 satellites, Arianespace said. Flight ST31 was the 56th Soyuz mission carried out by Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate; it was the 326thmission in the Arianespace family of launchers, bringing the total number of satellites launched by Arianespace to 868.

Luxembourg, 26 April 2021. – The 5G IoT startup OQ Technology will launch its first batch of six satellites with Spaceflight, the company said. OQ signed an agreement with Spaceflight to procure launch capacity and provide associated launch and integration services for OQ’s first batch of six satellites from its planned constellation of more than 60 spacecraft, the Luxembourg-based startup said.

Luxemburg, 26 April 2021. – Welcome to the ISS: the “first human spaceflight mission to fly astronauts on a flight-proven Falcon 9 and Dragon” docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday. The four Crew-2 astronauts had spent around 23 hours orbiting Earth before catching up with the ISS.

Luxembourg, 26 April 2021. – Rocket Lab builds a mission center in New Zealand for the climate monitoring satellite MethaneSAT, the company said. MethaneSAT is a satellite mission created to foster and accelerate reductions in the emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas responsible for at least a quarter of today’s planetary warming.

Paris, 23 April 2021. – The German Aerospace Center (DLR) wants to land a radiation detector on the Moon onboard Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander in 2021, Astrobotic said. DLR will send the detector to measure key radiation data on the flight to the Moon and on the lunar surface.

Paris, 23 April 2021. – Airbus Defence and Space will launch a small Earth observation satellite with Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum launch vehicle, the company said. “This constitutes the first major launch contract between an established space company and a privately financed European launcher company,” the startup said.