Opinion

A very Happy Swiss Day from all of us at SpaceWatch.Global. Let me thank you first of all for your trust, your contributions and your support in the last crucial year. I am proud to say that we have never been stronger in the market than today. Last year put all of us in a challenging situation and,

Space is changing – the near-Earth environment that was once principally used for largely strategic purposes by national governments is now increasingly being used for “tactical” applications by commercial companies. This creates a number of areas of potential contention – between different satellite operators competing for access to preferred orbital slots

After months of silence, last Friday saw an update on the dearMoon selection. Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire who purchased a SpaceX Starship flight around the Moon, currently scheduled for 2023, has shared an applicant sneak peek on his YouTube channel. According to the description, the video does not indicate who will be in the final crew.

SpaceWatch.Global has been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. This is “Keen to sign up for space tourism? Here are 6 things to consider (besides the price tag)”, originally published 23 July 2021 at The Conversation by Steven Freeland.

One of the reasons why space is rapidly attracting new investments is because of its potential to enable new applications for several non-space industries, health, communications, fintech, agriculture, oil & gas,  and even art, just to name some examples.

This piece describes the challenges posed by the increasing proliferation of orbital space debris, as well as debris falling back to Earth. It describes how a ‘business as usual’ case going forward threatens to result in outer space becoming less accessible and navigable, thus compromising future space activities. It describes the existing legal and governance frameworks that has been developed

The advent of large satellite constellations has focused attention on the risks associated with increasing activity in space. The growing space traffic and debris population, which results in more conjunctions, has made apparent the limitations of our collision avoidance capabilities and processes.

An underrecognized yet critical segment of the space sector is downlinking. Launch vehicles and satellites capture most of the headlines, but in and of themselves they have little value. They are a means to an end: they enable the flow of data that benefits people back here on Earth. Put differently, downstream applications justify investing in and developing new launch vehicles and satellites.

As Orbofleet’s market research report on Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) satellite operators will be soon available for purchase, here we present key pointers that provide a brief outlook on the current status of the major global NGSO satellite operators.

The global synthetic aperture radar (SAR) market size was valued at USD 2.21 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.7% from 2020 to 2027, according to Grand View Research. SAR is capable of high-resolution remote sensing, independent of flight altitude, and independent of the weather. SAR has day and night imaging capability.