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The Luxembourg-based startup Maana Electric extends its contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to complete the production of its 1MW TerraBox system and demonstrate how to transform terrestrial sand and lunar regolith into solar panels, the company said.

He did not welcome the uncontrolled return of China’s Long March launcher pieces for its Mars mission, but he congratulated China for the release of its first photos from the Zhurong Mars rover. “Congratulations to the China National Space Administration on receiving the first images from the Zhurong Mars rover,” the new NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

During this week’s Space Café, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening met with space strategist and former Chief Executive for the UK Space Agency, Katherine Courtney, to discuss space sustainability and her role as founder of education charity PrimarySpace.

“The first ever lunar communications & navigation service”: Europe pushes ahead with its plan to place communication and navigation satellites around the Moon. Under its Moonlight initiative, the European Space Agency (ESA) supports two consortia of European companies which embark on the design of telecommunications and navigation services for Moon missions.

Paris, 19 May 2021. – York Space Systems wants to open a new “mega” manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Denver, to meet the growing demand from government and commercial customers, the company said. York's Manufacturing Technology Center will be the hub of the company's next phase to expand its production capacity by four times, the space mission solution provider said.

The European space start-up Pangea Aerospace said it raised €3 million to develop and test its low-cost, 3D printed and reusable aerospike rocket engine. The company founded in 2018 and based in Barcelona announced the completion of its Series Seed round of €3 million, bringing the total funding to more than €6 million, including public financing.

Lighter, less expensive and reusable: the European Space Agency (ESA) signed two contracts with ArianeGroup to develop the reusable low-cost Prometheus engine and the lighter Ariane 6 upper stage called Phoebus. The contracts have a value of €135 million and €14.6 million respectively.

NASA invests more than $100 million in more than 100 American small high-tech businesses to “help them move their innovations to market”, the U.S. space agency said. Under its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, NASA grants 140 new awards to 127 small businesses located across 34 states and Washington, D.C., the agency said. The investment totals $105 million.

After 17 successful launches, Rocket Lab’s 20th Electron mission ‘Running Out Of Toes’ failed, the company announced on Sunday. Following a successful lift-off, first stage burn, and stage separation, Rocket Lab experienced an anomaly, the company said. The issue occurred following second stage ignition, resulting in the loss of the mission, it said.

Give me five: The Japanese Earth observation startup Axelspace raised $24 million to fund a half of its planned ten satellite constellation, the company announced. Axelspace said it completed its series C funding round raising $ 23.8 million; the round allocates new shares to The Space Frontier Fund and several other venture capitals and corporate investors.