Government

A lot of global goodwill and a declaration of deterrence: The Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX 2021) opened in St. Petersburg with high-level commitments from different nations to continue to internationally cooperate in space. NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson announced his wish to extend the collaboration on the International Space Station (ISS) until 2030;

The G7 nations committed to a safe and sustainable use of space at their leaders’ summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, the UK government said. Delegates from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the USA, the UK and the EU pledged to take action to tackle the growing hazard of space debris as our planet’s orbit becomes increasingly crowded, the UK said.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Niklas Nienass, Member of the European Parliament, The Greens/EFA, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. Freedom, Science, Democracy. Europe's role in the new Space Race - Space travel is currently undergoing rapid change.

The UK government has appointed Paul Bate as CEO of the UK Space Agency, succeeding Graham Turnock. Bate is currently Vice President, Commercial at Babylon Health, working with healthcare organisations in the NHS and across the world. Prior to that, he was the Executive Director of Strategy and Intelligence at the Care Quality Commission.

The European Commission will launch the EU’s new space program in a virtual conference on 22 June, the commission said. The conference is cohosted by the European Commission/DG DEFIS (Directorate General for Defence, Industry and Space), the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The U.S. Department of the Air Force (DAF) studies the use of large commercial rockets for military cargo missions. DAF’s fourth Vanguard program will focus on rocket cargo solutions and investigate the use of large commercial launchers for Pentagon logistics missions, DAF said.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) cooperates with the Philippines Space Agency on the peaceful use of outer space, the agency announced. UNOOSA said it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Philippines Space Agency (PhilSA) to deliver joint capacity-building activities

New Zealand is the 11th nation to sign NASA’s Artemis Accords, the country announced. New Zealand’s foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta and the economic development minister Stuart Nash announced the government has agreed to join the Artemis Accords, launched by NASA, and now signed by eleven nations, the government said on its website. 

The European Space Agency (ESA) partners with the British Arqit – a leader in the quantum encryption field – to develop its quantum key distribution satellite QKDSat, the agency said. ArQit recently announced that it was merging with Centricus, a global investment firm, in a transaction expected to provide Arqit with up to €330 million in gross proceeds.

The European Court of Justice rejected a request by OHB System to suspend a decision by the European Space Agency (ESA) to exclude the German satellite company from a Galileo public contract, which went to its rivals Airbus and Thales Alenia Space, Reuters and other newswires reported. The court also dismissed OHB's application for interim relief, the reports said.