News

Ororatech announced it has signed a pilot contract with the Green Triangle Fire Alliance (GTFA) for satellite-based Wildfire Intelligence Service over the 2021/22 fire season. The GTFA is located along the border of South Australia and Victoria. It represents 17% of the country’s plantations, comprising over 320,000 hectares of pine and eucalypt trees.

UN:IO consortium members will conduct a feasibility study to create a sovereign communications network for Europe by 2025, the company announced. The European Commission funded the project with €1.4M. The consortium comprises 14 NewSpace companies led by satellite manufacturer Reflex Aerospace, launch provider Isar Aerospace and laser specialist Mynaric.

Launch service provider Isar Aerospace and the German Space Agency at DLR have announced they selected the institutional payloads for Spectrum’s first flight. The rocket launch is planned for the end of 2022 as part of the microlauncher competition.  Five institutions from Germany, Norway, and Slovenia with a total of seven small satellites won the Announcement of Opportunity.

Rocket Lab acquires the space solar power firm SolAero for $80 million, the company said. SolAero is a supplier of space solar power products and precision aerospace structures for the global aerospace market. The strategic acquisition will see Rocket Lab add the world’s largest production line of high-performing space solar cells to its growing space systems business, Rocket Lab said.

The recently established consortium of 22 European companies from 8 countries, New Symphonie, has won a concept study for the European Commission (EC) aiming to develop new ideas for an innovative European broadband constellation, Euroconsult reported. The project is called “New Space solutions for long-term availability of reliable, secure, cost-effective space-based connectivity”.

Blue Origin conducted its third space flight on Saturday, after high winds forced a delay on the Thursday launch. The roughly 11-minute trip on the reusable, automated capsule carried four paying customers and two guests just beyond the Kármán line. The four paying customers were space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor,

The European Space Agency (ESA) prepares the post-ISS era and Europe´s continued presence in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and solicitates private companies to work and collaborate with ESA on commercial concepts. ESA launched a project called SciHab (Science and Habitation), “an orbital human-tended platform with a modular design and open to commercial services”, the agency said.

The data analytics provider Spire Global received approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to fly its Adler-1 satellite on Virgin Orbit’s upcoming, the company said. The satellite, which was integrated at Virgin Orbit’s Long Beach facility in the U.S. within 36 hours, will fly as the third customer in the “Above the Clouds” mission,

In this session of Space Cafè “Moriba’s Vox Populi 08” Dr. Moriba Jah talked about the Russian Anti-Satellite Test - What are the intended and unintended consequences? with Alex Fielding, Artem Mokhnatkin, Holger Krag, Michael Byers, Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, Col. Scott Brodeur, Victoria Newberry,

NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission launched yesterday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA reported. The joint project with the Italian Space Agency will examine exploding stars and black holes, among other space objects.