Frontiers News

Today Bremen will write history. The 1st European Spaceplane Summit, organized by Polaris Spaceplanes, kicked off. Torsten Kriening spoke with Annika Wollermann, Chief Commercial Officer and Managing Director of Polaris Raumfahrzeuge GmbH, about the event, the vision , expected outcomes, and the status of their space plane.

Astroscale Ltd. ("Astroscale UK"), a subsidiary of Astroscale Holdings Inc, announces the successful completion of the Preliminary Design Review phase with the UK Space Agency (UKSA) for its national Active Debris Removal (ADR) mission, COSMIC (Cleaning Outer Space Mission through Innovative Capture). The Company also recently partnered with Space Trash Signs, an initiative to visualize the consequences of space debris on different aspects of life on Earth – highlighting the imperative need for missions such as COSMIC.

ClearSpace has announced that its CLEAR Mission – funded as part of the UK Space Agency’s national debris removal program – has achieved Preliminary Design Review (PDR) maturity, marking a significant advancement in the collective aim of making our space operations more sustainable. The CLEAR Mission will use ClearSpace’s robotic capture system to safely remove two dead, washing-machine-sized, UK satellites from orbit, mitigating the risk that these pieces of space debris pose to other space operations.

MDA Space has announced it has received a $250 million contract extension from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to continue supporting robotics operations on the International Space Station (ISS) from 2025 to 2030. Furthermore, as part of the contract, MDA Space will now fulfil robotics flight controller duties to support mission operations on the ISS.

Astroscale Japan Inc. has announced that its commercial debris inspection demonstration satellite, Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J), has achieved a major technical milestone: completion of the rendezvous phase of its mission and the beginning of the proximity approach. This success is underscored by starting Angles-Only Navigation, a navigation method to estimate relative position and velocity through the servicer’s onboard cameras.

According to State Space Corporation Roscosmos anouncements on Thursday 11 April 2024, followed by Agence TASS reports, an Angara-A5 heavy-lift rocket with an Orion booster launched from the Vostochny spaceport in Russia’s Far East on its third attempt.In about 12 minutes, the Orion booster separated from the Angara upper stage and proceeded to a double orbital insertion: first a cube sat in lower orbit, then a test-payload delivered into the targetted geostationary orbit as part of the rocket’s flight development tests.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Masahito Moriyama have signed an agreement to advance sustainable human exploration of the Moon. As a result, Japan will design, develop, and operate a pressurized rover for crewed and uncrewed exploration on the Moon. On the other hand, NASA will provide the launch and delivery of the rover to the Moon as well as two opportunities for Japanese astronauts to travel to the lunar surface.

Astrobotic is partnering with Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) on MOONRISE, a project in which researchers are working to bring 3D printing to the Moon. As a result, LZH has contracted with Astrobotic for a flight to the Moon, which will tentatively take place in late 2026. LZH will equip Astrobotic’s lander with a compact, sturdy laser that will melt lunar dust, known as regolith, creating 2D structures on the lunar surface.

Vast Space has announced that its Haven-1 commercial space station will feature SpaceX's Starlink user terminal, consequently providing Gigabit/s speed low-latency connectivity to its crew users, internal payload racks, external cameras and instruments.

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has announced it has won a $14.49 million task order from the U.S. Space Force (USSF) to launch an Electron mission from Launch Complex 2. The mission, called Space Test Program-30 (STP-S30), falls under the Space Systems Command (SSC) Assured Access to Space organization and is part of Orbital Services Program-4 (OSP-4).