Asia Pacific

By Jessica West and Gilles Doucet Specialists in space security constantly call for more responsible norms of behavior in outer space. As the number of users and uses of space grows, the calls get louder and more urgent. Meanwhile, many states claim to want the same thing. Canada’s national defense …

Rocket Lab has received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to resume launches this month, after identifying an anomalous electrical connection as the cause of an in-flight failure on July 4, 2020. With corrective measures underway, the next Electron launch has been scheduled for August from Launch Complex 1. …

By Raphael Roettgen With approximately US$56 million of space-related funding rounds, July was slightly stronger than June 2020, but still on the weak side, and lacking any large rounds (except as noted below). On the positive side, the monthly rounds represent a good cross-section of geographies and subsectors. SpaceX is …

by Kiran Mohan Vazhapully Last month, based on a Reuters report, Chris Borgen wrote in Opinio Juris about the White House chalking out details of a United States (US) sponsored international framework dubbed “Artemis Accords”,  to facilitate commercial mining on the Moon. They are conceived as inter-agency bilateral agreements similar …

Lunar services company ispace, revealed the final design of its lunar lander that will be used in the first mission of the company’s HAKUTO-R program, a multinational commercial lunar exploration program. HAKUTO-R’s ‘Mission 1’ also reached the final hardware design phase, known as the Critical Design Review (CDR). The HAKUTO-R …

Azercosmos signed an agreement with Canada’s Prime African Media Systems company, to broadcast ATN TV in the West African region using the capacity of the Azerspace-2 satellite. “Thanks to the infrastructure capabilities of Prime African Media Systems, we will provide innovative satellite solutions to difficult geographical locations in the African region,” …

Acting as launch service provider for DEWC Systems, Southern Launch selected the T-Minus Engineering DART rocket to launch DEWC’s prototype payload on a parabolic trajectory into space, at the Koonibba Rocket Test Range later this year. “This exciting launch was triggered by a simple chat in early 2019 about the possibility …

Russia and Turkey may begin cooperation in the space sector by elaborating fair mechanisms for joint use of outer space, Russian Ambassador to Turkey Alexei Yerkhov said in an article published in Monday’s issue of the Daily Sabah newspaper. The Russian diplomat pointed to the fact that some states “practically …

In this week’s Space Cafè WebTalk, Niklas Hedman, Chief of the Committee, Policy and Legal Affairs Section of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) in Vienna talked about the governance phases under the 60 year history of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space …

The heavy-lift Ariane 5 for Arianespace’s fifth mission of 2020 is now complete, following integration of its three modules at the Spaceport in French Guiana. During activity in Ariane 5’s Final Assembly Building, the upper payload component – containing Galaxy 30 (G-30) and the Mission Extension Vehicle-2 (MEV-2) in a …