UKspace has appointed Colin Baldwin as Executive Director of UKspace to lead the organization, following the decision by its Director, Lizzie Kerr, to step down from her role with the official trade association of the UK space industry. Lizzie will be retiring on 30 June 2024 after more than five and a half years in her post. Colin Baldwin's appointment as Executive Director of UKspace will consequently take effect from 1 July 2024.
Read More »Ingersoll Rand Acquires ILC to Expand Presence in Life Sciences
Ingersoll Rand Inc. has entered into an agreement to acquire ILC Dover (ILC) from New Mountain Capital, LLC, a growth-oriented investment firm with approximately $50 billion in assets under management. The deal includes an upfront cash purchase price of approximately $2.325 billion and an earnout tied to the achievement of select operating efficiency metrics in 2024. At its maximum payout, the earnout increases the 17x upfront purchase multiple by less than one turn.
Read More »Space Cafe “33 minutes with Artemis BRICS” – Can the Global South Shape the Moon Accords? – recap
The Artemis Accords, boasting a membership of 36 nations, encompass a diverse array of Western and non-Western states, with signatories from Latin America, the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, and the Middle East. Notably, key members of the Artemis Accords, including Brazil, India, and the UAE, also hold membership in BRICS—a prominent intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
Read More »TEXUS 60 Rocket Launches for Microgravity Experiments
The Airbus-built TEXUS 60 rocket was successfully launched on Sunday, 24 March, from the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden. The rocket reached an apogee of 251 km and provided 362 seconds of microgravity time. The payloads on board included two DLR experiments for the German Aerospace Center (DLR), called Simona and GECO, as well as a joint experiment of DLR and the Japanese Space Agency JAXA, called Phoenix 2.
Read More »UKSA Announces New Headquarters and Regional Offices
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) is opening new headquarters in Harwell, Oxfordshire and regional offices in Scotland, Wales and the Midlands as it works to support the space sector across the UK. Aligned with the UK Government’s Levelling Up strategy, the expansion will enable the Agency to collaborate more closely with the UK’s thriving space sector while promoting regional skills and job opportunities to deliver increasingly ambitious missions and capabilities.
Read More »Qosmosys and LSA Partner to Advance Lunar Economy Initiatives
Qosmosys, a company in the field of lunar economy, has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA) to collaborate on cutting-edge research and development projects in the burgeoning field of the growing lunar economy.
Read More »NASA to Add Special Heat Coating to NISAR Satellite
The NISAR (NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite – a joint NASA-Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Earth-observing mission – is nearly complete, and a launch readiness date will be determined at the end of April. The spacecraft will subsequently launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India’s southeastern coast.
Read More »GITAI Completes Technology Demonstration Outside the ISS
GITAI USA Inc. (GITAI) has announced the successful completion of all planned tasks in an external demonstration focusing on in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM). These tasks are crucial for on-orbit satellite servicing and were accomplished using a 1.5-meter-long autonomous dual robotic arm system (S2) outside the International Space Station (ISS). This milestone marks GITAI’s second successful demonstration, following an earlier demonstration inside the ISS in 2021.
Read More »Gaia Space Telescope Discovers Ancient Stellar Streams
The European Space Agency (ESA)'s Gaia space telescope has discovered two surprising streams of stars that formed and wove together over 12 billion years ago. The two streams, named Shakti and Shiva, helped form the infant Milky Way. Both are so ancient they likely formed before even the oldest parts of our present-day galaxy’s spiral arms and disc.
Read More »Hanwha Phasor to Release Flat-Panel Satellite Antenna
Hanwha Phasor, a UK-based satellite communications company, has announced it will release its land antenna, for mobile communications, the Phasor L3300B, to the market in Q3 of 2024. The Phasor L3300B is an active electronically steered antenna (AESA) which has been developed for commercial and military use.
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