As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup, 2021 Top Trends and Events”.

2021 finished strong, with another SPAC merger with a space-related (albeit not originally a space) company (Tomorrow.io), more fundraising by SpaceX, a few major private rounds, a couple of investments by Virgin Orbit (and hence yet further examples of a de-SPAC’d company deploying part of its cash towards investments) and even a small IPO (Sidus).

The U.S. committed to extend the operations of the International Space Station (ISS) through 2030, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced. The Biden-Harris Administration wants to continue to work with its international partners “to enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted in this unique orbiting laboratory through the rest of this decade”.

No SPAC mergers with space companies in November, but a blockbuster round of US$1.4 billion for Sierra Space. We also had ‘traditional’ public listings by Telesat and Mynaric (of ADSs). It was also an interesting month on the M&A front with deals including Redwire / Techshot, Inmarsat / Viasat, Planet / VanderSat, and Rocket Lab / Planetary Systems Corp

Rocket Lab announced it has signed a deal with Japanese Earth imaging company Synspective to carry out three Electron launches. The missions are dedicated to Synspective which means that the StriX satellites will be the only payload, giving the company control over launch schedule. Last year, Rocket Lab launched ‘The Owl’s Night Begins’ mission

The in-orbit servicer Astroscale raised another $109 million from different investors, bringing the total capital raised to date to $300 million, the Japanese space company said. The Series F round was the “largest funding round in the company’s history”, as Astroscale says.

ICEYE announced having signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on developing advanced SAR products. The collaboration builds on G42’s recent agreement with Yahsat to develop a geospatial data fusion of different sensor modalities. Finnish Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite and analytics provider, ICEYE

Rocket Lab acquires Planetary Systems, a spacecraft separation systems company based in Maryland, for $42 million in cash and a 1.7 million share package, Rocket Lab said. The deal includes a nearly one million Rocket Lab share option as a performance earnout. Planetary Systems is a provider of mechanical separation systems and satellite dispensers.

Space technology has become an integral part of global commercial industries and as a result several nations are keen on developing space capabilities for commercial, civil, and military purposes. Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Russia, and the United States are some of the most prominent players in the space industry;

Japanese research rocket SS-520-3 was launched from Andøya Space launch site, Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard on 4th November to investigate the cusp region, Andøya Space reported. The cusp region is the focus of the Grand Challenge Initiative Project Cusp. The Earth’s magnetic field has created a funnel in this region which will be examined