Features

It was a spectacle, perhaps one of the greatest ever to be hosted on the National Mall.  Projecting the pictorial narrative of what many, including this author, consider to be humankind’s greatest achievement onto the Washington Monument was a stroke of genius. 

UP42 is making the use of geospatial data easy. I don't know if you remember what geospatial data looked like in the 1990s, but I remember it as a map book. It was inefficient and difficult to use and when geospatial data is hard to use, we tend to run away. We just don't use it and we get lost.

During the Space Generation Advisory Council Event in Kuwait, SpaceWatch.Global Editor Chaitanya Gopal had the chance to sit down with Dr. Bassam Alfeeli, the Founder of Orbital Space,  the first private company in the Middle East to provide access to space through CubeSat technology. Here, he talks about his ambitions for the company and his goal of building a space programme in Kuwait.

Last March, Secure World Foundation was pleased to announce the inaugural Summit for Space Sustainability, to be held in Washington, DC on June 25-26, 2019. Our creation of the Summit was driven by the rapid growth in both the number and diversity of space actors, the emergence of new kinds of space activities, and the resulting space sustainability challenges posed by these developments.

On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, we couldn't think of a better feature than SpaceWatch.Global's Editor, Chaitanya Gopal's interview with  Dr. John Mankins of the Moon Village Association (MVA) to discuss the ways in which this NGO is looking at the best ways of establishing a community on Earth's closest neighbour. Enjoy this insight!

On September 4-5 2019 the global space scene will meet in Trondheim, Norway for the 3rd edition of the SpacePort Norway event. SpaceWatch.Global's Torsten Kriening had the chance to sit together with Ole Dokka, Executive Director, Spaceport Norway, to learn more about the upcoming event.

As the debate about arms in space rages on and becomes more of a concern for countries all over the world, the importance of discussion within the international community becomes even more critical. In this interview, Renata Dwan, Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), gives us her insight into the prevention of arms in space and the important activities that her organisation undertakes. 

"The main goal of Women in Aerospace is to improve the representation of women in aerospace and thus to help the youngest to find their own career path". This statement, made by the Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), Simonetta di Pippo, shows the importance of empowering young women in space.

The so-called New Space trend is developing, creating new opportunities and new challenges for all actors of the space sector. Understanding what is happening and (potential) implications is essential for sound decision-making. Yet, European stakeholders significantly rely on foreign evaluations and data, in particular to monitor private investment and assess entrepreneurship dynamics. The European Space Policy Institute decided to address this gap with its new Space Venture Europe report series.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and the European Space Policy Institute, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and briefs. This is ESPI Briefs No. 19: ‘Cyber Security: High Stakes for the Space Sector ’, originally published in November 2018.