Government

Russia’s State Space Corporation, Roscosmos, has announced that the Luna-25 automatic lunar station collided with the moon's surface and subsequently perished. The agency pointed out that on August 19 that the lunar probe would have received propulsion thrust to descend into its landing trajectory on the Moon's elliptical orbit. However, the Agency lost contact with the probe "at about 2:57 p.m. Decree time." The Russian space agency disclosed that all measures regarding the spacecraft's location and establishing communications with it on August 19 and 20 yielded zero results.

LeoLabs, a commercial provider of Space Traffic Management (STM) and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) services has shared their support for the European Space Agency's (ESA) successful assisted reentry of Aeolus, an Earth observation satellite, over Antarctica on 28 July 2023.

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has announced it has signed a double-launch deal with NASA to deliver the Agency’s climate change research-focused mission, PREFIRE, to low Earth orbit in 2024.  The launches will consequently be the 7th and 8th missions Rocket Lab has launched for NASA since 2018.

ICEYE US Inc has received its first Task Order under a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with NASA, enabling NASA to acquire ICEYE’s synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) data for evaluation by scientific and academic communities. This will help to determine suitability for advancing NASA’s Earth Science research objectives. The BPA gets its funding from the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate. Since 2020, NASA’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program has been identifying, evaluating, and acquiring data from commercial sources that align with NASA’s Earth Science Division objectives.

Warpspace has announced that the National Research and Development Agency New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) has accepted its proposal, "Development of a modem and router to realize a multi-protocol platform for optical communications in space,"  for the Japanese "SBIR Program" (one-stop-shop type) for fiscal year 2023.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has, through its Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs (CRSRA) office has announced the modification of operating licenses of multiple commercial satellite systems. These license conditions had previously restricted the operations of commercial satellites, preventing them from offering their full remote sensing capabilities to the public. On July 20, 2020, NOAA implemented new, specific regulations on private remote sensing systems.

In this episode of Space Café Radio, we have an insightful conversation with Dr. Ernst Pfeiffer, the CEO of HPS Group and Chairman of the German Space SME. Our host, Torsten Kriening, publisher at SpaceWatch.Global delves into the current state of the German and European space markets. Moreover, we explore the potential repercussions of the proposed German space budget cuts amounting to 180 million euros, anticipated for confirmation by the government by the end of 2023.

The India Space Research Organization (ISRO) has released lunar images from the Chandrayaan-3 mission as the spacecraft successfully completed its Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI). The spacecraft performed the insertion by retro-burning at its closest point to Moon (Perilune) for 1835 seconds, starting at 19:12 Hrs (IST). The maneuver resulted in an orbit of 164 km x 18074 km, as the research organization intended.

Dr. Kate Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist, and senior climate advisor, has become co-chair of a working group on climate change mitigation at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is the United Nations body responsible for assessing the science related to climate change. Prior to the selection, Calvin contributed to five reports by the IPCC.

Euclid's two instruments have captured their first test images. The mesmerizing results indicate that the space telescope will achieve the scientific goals that it has been designed for - and possibly much more. Although there are months to go before Euclid delivers its true new view of the cosmos, reaching this milestone means the scientists and engineers behind the mission are confident that the telescope and instruments are working well.