Environment information services enterprise NorthStar Earth & Space, stated that the first three spacecraft of its 24-satellite constellation dedicated to commercial Space Situational Awareness (SSA) will be among space-to-cloud data and analytics company, Spire Global’s satellite payloads to be launched by Virgin Orbit in mid-2023.

Space sustainability company Privateer, is partnering with telescope manufacturer Celestron to crowdsource the transparency and predictability of space, Privateer said. Dr Moriba Jah, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist at Privateer ha been advocating for transparency, predictability, and accountability in space for years.

Space launch systems operator Virgin Orbit (VO), and the Luxembourg Minister of Defence signed a Letter of Intent to begin the process towards developing responsive space capabilities inclusive of a Luxembourg-based mobile launch infrastructure available for NATO partners, and other Allies across the European continent, VO said. As part of the agreement, VO will assess how such a space capability could be based in the country and optimized for various needs. 

The European Space Agency (ESA) introduced eight steps to advance diversity and inclusiveness as part of its Agenda 2025 to complete the ESA Transformation, ESA said. The Agency claims that these steps will contribute to strengthening innovation and motivation, decreasing resistance to change, and fostering knowledge sharing. 

OneWeb confirmed the successful deployment of 36 satellites launched by ISRO and NewSpace India (NSIL), from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC- SHAR) in Sriharikota, India, OneWeb said. This is the first ever commercial launch of LVM3 with a heavy payload to low Earth orbit (LEO).

The US Space Command (Spacecom) tracks over 47,000 objects in space currently, which responsibility is planned to be transferred to the Department of Commerce, the US Department of Defence said. The transfer of responsibility will allow Spacecom to focus on what is happening in Earth’s orbits.

On-orbit servicing provider Astroscale, has contracted RHEATECH, part of engineering and solutions company RHEA Group, to provide the mission control system and operations automation for its End-of-Life Services by Astroscale Multiple Client (ELSA-M) servicer, the companies said. The partnership builds on the duo previous collaboration on the ELSA-d (ELSA-demonstrator) debris removal spacecraft. 

The first Omani satellite, Aman, has been successfully integrated with Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket, awaiting to be deployed into low Earth orbit, by Virgin from Newquay, Cornwall, UK. LauncherOne is already on the launch site, awaiting its launch license from the British government. This will be the first launch from UK soil and the first international launch for Virgin.

Our Space Café WebTalk “33 minutes with Paul Liias - Why should you go to Tallinn, Estonia in October?” Took place on Tuesday, 18th October. Paul is Head of Space Policy at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication. He created the Estonian Space Policy and Program 2020-2027 and he is currently working on Estonian national space legislation and a decentralized e-government solution for Space Traffic Management.

The European Space Agency-built (ESA) Ariane 6 heavy-lift launch system’s inaugural flight is only to be expected by Q4 2023 instead of the original plan of early 2023, ESA said. Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director General stressed however, that this was merely a planned date, which might have to be amended. Several key milestones will have to be achieved is a timely manner, for it to become reality, he added.