India

The leaders of BRICS Space Agencies have signed an agreement to share remote sensing satellite data the Indian Space Research Organisation reports. The heads of space agencies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa signed the agreement via video meeting.

June 2021 saw over $1.5 billion raised in private fundraising for space-related companies. No space company mergers with SPACs in June but, as we already know by now, SPACs will appear again in the July edition of our financing review, with Satellogic’s and Planet’s mergers already having been announced.

The LEO operator OneWeb received a $500 million injection from its large shareholder Bharti, totalling its secured funding to $2.4 billion, the company said. Bharti exercised a call option under the existing shareholders’ agreement to invest an additional $500 million, and will then hold 38.6% of the company, it said.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India’s pillar for space exploration, is one of the top six governmental space agencies in the world. Progress in the space endeavours marked by ISRO has received applauds across the globe, especially with the successful Mars Orbital Mission which made India the first nation to reach Mars in a maiden attempt.

May 2021 saw over US$600 million raised in private fundraising for space-related companies. More than two-thirds of this amount comes from the announcement of another SPAC merger, this time with quantum key distribution company ArQit (as before, this amount assumes cash in trust, PIPE, no redemptions/repayments, and is before fees).

NASA builds a new Earth System Observatory to cope with climate change, forest fires and hurricanes and to support a “real-time agriculture”, the U.S. agency said. “With the Earth System Observatory, each satellite will be uniquely designed to complement the others, working in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth, from bedrock to the atmosphere,” NASA said.

In the not-so-distant future, some country’s leader will be forced to answer the following question – will they passively allow the citizens and military forces of their nation to be targeted, with impunity, by the space forces of an adversary nation? 

AST SpaceMobile, in partnership with Vodafone Group, unveiled plans to launch the first phase of its space-based commercial mobile communications service in 2023.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Assessing the British Proposal on Space Security”, originally published on 10 December 2020 in The Diplomat.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Joint Air Power Competence Centre, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “State’s Right to Self-Defence in Outer Space A New Challenge for NATO’s Deterrence”, originally published in the Joint Air Power Competence Centre Journal 30.