Opinion

The UK space sector is on the cusp of entering a new and golden age. As a country, the UK already has a thriving space sector with leading companies that have pioneered the small satellite industry, for example. Now, however, with the announcement of the first spaceport to be built …

The history of the market economy in Russia can be traced back more than a quarter of a century, but the country’s private space sector began to emerge relatively recently: most of the industry players known today joined the market only about 5 years ago. This can be explained by …

Nestled inside a protective aluminum shell is a silicon disc about the size of a United States half dollar.  Inscribed on this disc are microscopic messages from leaders of 73 nations solicited by Thomas Paine, then head of NASA.  The messages, intended to be left on the Moon for posterity, …

Dmitry Rogozin’s recent announcement of the end of the Proton program caused quite a lot of controversy. People started talking about the Proton era coming to a close, about Russia being left only with the Angara rocket to rely on and how the last commercially successful rocket had been done …

On July 10, the 2018 Progress MS-09 (Progress 70 or 70P as identified by NASA) resupply vehicle made history by reaching the International Space Station in the record-short time of only 3 hours and 40 minutes (and two orbits) after launch. Unfortunately, that remarkably short ride failed to make headlines …

By Dr. Michael K. Simpson The good, the bad, the great, and the ugly were all on display as the United Nations community gathered in Vienna last month to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first UN space policy conference. Dubbed UNISPACE+50, the celebration commemorated UNISPACE I, a conference that …

There is a new sector emerging within the space industry that could utterly revolutionise the satellite sector. On-orbit servicing could be the biggest advancement the industry has seen yet as it could bring with it the capabilities to tackle space debris, to repair operational satellites and even upgrade them, reducing …

CosmoCourse is a private Russian space company which develops its own reusable suborbital space complex for tourist spaceflight. SpaceWatch.Global Contributor Evgeniy Ryzhkov met with the company’s CEO Pavel Pushkin to talk about the suborbital space system currently under development, about competition within the emerging space tourism industry as well as …

By Daniel A Porras [1] There is widespread concern about the prospect of space becoming militarised and it is a critical issue on the United Nation’s agenda. In this exclusive article, Daniel Porras, Space Security Fellow, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, gives an update on the efforts of the …

By Krystal Wilson, Director of Space Applications Programs, Secure World Foundation In September 2015, more than 150 world leaders met at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Building on the successes of the original eight Millennium Development Goals(MDGs), this new agenda officially came into …