Star Trek Actor William Shatner and Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s Vice President of Mission and Flight Operations, will fly on board New Shepard NS-18, Blue Origin announced. A Russian actress, and a film producer will launch towards the ISS today along with a cosmonaut, to film segments for a movie.

World Space Week, a UN-declared celebration of space is held annually, every October from 4th to 10th. The dates commemorate two events. The first is the launch of Sputnik 1, the first human-made satellite on 4th October, 1957. The second is the signing of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activites of States in the

The Shiyan-10 satellite suffered an abnormal function and the spacecraft was lost after a normal flight, Xinhua News Agency reports. The satellite launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre on a Long March 3B rocket. The reasons for the anomaly and loss of spacecraft are still unknown, investigation of what happened exactly is still ongoing.

Lucy, NASA’s first spacecraft to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids is being prepared for launch on 16th October, NASA said. By studying these asteroids, scientists hope to learn more about how the planets of the Solar System formed. NASA’s Lucy team have been preparing the spacecraft for flight in the past eight weeks.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has cleared Virgin Galactic to resume launches, Virgin Galactic said. The FAA carried out an investigation as the rocket plane deviated from its course while descending during July’s flight. The FAA barred Virgin from flying SpaceShipTwo until the investigation to determine the issues would not affect public safety was over.

ArianeGroup and Devialet announced a new partnership that will allow experiencing the power of an Ariane 5 rocket taking off. The sound was recorded by a Devialet engineer over three days at Kourou in French Guiana in 2019. Both firms work on similar problems as rockets and speakers have a number of things in common.

Aistech Space SL has signed a contract with Orbital Astronautics Ltd (OrbAstro) to fly its first Guardian mission, OrbAstro said. Their 6U-class, ORB-6 satellite platform will host an Aistech multi-spectral imaging payload to enable commercial services. The aim of the mission is to address environmental sustainability.

Spire Global announced a new partnership with SpaceChain to launch a mission demonstrating the feasibility of blockchain technology computation in space. The cooperation aims to resolve land-based centralised infrastructure issues as well. SpaceChain is a global space-as-a-service solutions provider developing the world’s first decentralised satellite infrastructure (DSI).

The British Government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Ministry of Defence, and the UK Space Agency announced the launch of a National Space Strategy. The plan is to make the UK a world class space nation by giving a boost to its space industry. Space is worth over £16 billion per year to the UK economy.

Two out of four: Blue Origin announced that New Shepard’s 18th mission, NS-18, will carry four astronauts to space, including Dr Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries. Dr Boshuizen is a former NASA engineer and co-founder of Planet Labs while de Vries is the co-founder of Medidata. The two other astronauts will be announced at a later date.