News

South Korea will test a rocket engine designed and built by the Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) in a suborbital launch to be carried out at the end of October 2018, according to reports in the South Korean press.

Gilmour Space Technologies, the Australian-Singaporean New Space satellite launch company headquartered in Queensland, Australia, has secured U.S.$13.73 million (AUS$19 million) in a Series B investment round to scale up its operations and launch its first commercial hybrid launch vehicle into orbit by 2020.

Chinese commercial satellite launch vehicle company ExPace successfully launched an experimental positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) satellite called Centispace-1-S1 on board a Kuaizhou-1A launch vehicle from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre (JSLC) on 29 September 2018.

Arianespace has announced that it will launch THEOS-II, the very-high-resolution Earth observation optical satellite for Thailand, and KOMPSAT-7 for the Korean Aerspace Research Institute (KARI), in two separate launches on the new Arianespace Vega-C launch vehicle in 2021.

An event, held alongside the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly, engaged world leaders to highlight the importance of space as a “driver for peace and sustainable development on Earth, as a driver for innovative space diplomacy and as the New Frontier for Peace on Earth”.

Japanese New Space exploration and space resources company Ispace has signed a launch agreement with SpaceX to launch their first privately-funded Lunar mission in 2020.

Sky and Space Global (SAS), the New Space narrowband satellite communications company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to explore how SAS’ communications service can be integrated into their respective national telecommunications infrastructure.

China's government is considering building a commercial space launch centre for the country's New Space private launch companies, a number of which will be attempting their first orbital flights by the end of 2018, according to a report by Andrew Jones in GBTimes.

The UAE Space Agency is preparing a comprehensive strategy for investing in the country's space sector, in cooperation with relevant UAE federal and individual Emirate authorities, and which will be released in October 2018.

Angola's National Space Programme Management Office (GGPEN) has revealed that it is using capacity on third-party communications satellites paid for by Russia as part of a compensation package for the failure in orbit of AngoSat-1 four months after its launch in late 2017, according to a report in the French-language technology news service Agence Ecofin.