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Researchers are using a human-machine collaborative approach to assess areas of poverty in underdeveloped nations. Providing an accurate assessment of poverty is a global challenge with 53 countries not conducting agricultural surveys in the past 15 years, and 17 countries not publishing a population census. To fill the data gap new technologies are being used to estimate poverty using alternative sources including street views, aerial photos, and satellite images. 

Spire Global, Inc. has received a multi-million euro contract from EUMETSAT, Europe’s meteorological satellite agency, to provide radio occultation (RO) data. The contract is for an initial period of two years, from 2024-2026, with three optional, one-year extensions. The award follows a successful pilot program, which demonstrated the benefits of Spire’s RO data for weather forecasting accuracy and value. The Company’s RO data provides information about the vertical profiles of pressure, humidity and temperature across all points of the globe, including in the most remote regions and open oceans.

At the end of day one of the World Space Forum 2023 at UNOOSA in Vienna, Dr. Emma Gatti and Torsten Kriening offer their recap of the day. They have recorded the Space Cafe Clip directly after Dr. Gatti's Worksop titled "Nobody cares about your satellite. Our struggle for a better space communications"

Helicity Space, a commercial space company developing in-space propulsion and power technology based on fusion power, has raised $5 million in seed round funding from several new investors. The successful raise enables Helicity Space to advance its proprietary technology, the Helicity Drive, which consists of scalable fusion propulsion engines that should enable safer, faster, reusable, and more fuel-efficient travel into deep space.

ispace, inc. and Orbit Fab, Inc have announced an agreement to collaborate on in-space propellant harvesting and delivery for future missions to the Moon. The partnership will leverage each company’s unique and complementary capabilities to develop effective propellants and fuels from resources in space, such as water, ice, and lunar regolith or fine and rocky soils found on the surface of the Moon.

Lunasonde has announced the launch timeline for its third satellite to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The San Xavier satellite will fly on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Transporter-11 in the summer of 2024 via launch provider Exolaunch. It is the company’s first on-orbit test of its proprietary very low-frequency radar technological stack capable of detecting subsurface mineral deposits up to two kilometers underground.

In this Space Café Radio - SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Dr Slavka Andrejkovičová, CAMões Mission Control, and Principal Investigator at the GeoBioTec research unit at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. Torsten spoke with Slavka on the evening before the CAMões Mission analog astronauts left the cave. They have been on the mission for over 6 days already.

Thales Alenia Space has signed a multi-mission contract with PT Len Industri to provide a state-of-the-art Earth observation constellation combining both radar and optical sensors and dedicated to the Indonesian Ministry of Defence (MoD). As a result, both companies will join forces to deploy an end-to-end system including space and ground segment in Indonesia.

The U.S. Space Force, the U.S. European Command, and the U.S. Africa Command have launched the U.S. Space Forces Europe and Africa component, their newest service component. The component was established to ​​support the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in an expansion of USSF’s growing reach into combatant commands.

Amos has won an ESA contract to supply six hyperspectral spectrometers that will serve as the heart of the CHIME satellite mission (Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment, also known as Sentinel-10). CHIME is an extension of the Copernicus program of the European Commission, in partnership with the ESA.