Asia Pacific

Singaporean New Space debris removal company Astroscale has announced that it has raised U.S.$50 million from investors led by INCJ Ltd., as well as from SBI Investment Co. Ltd. and Mitsubishi Estate Co. Ltd. This fourth round of funding means that the company has now raised U.S.$102 million in total since its founding in 2013.

The Australian Space Agency (ASA) released its institutional charter on 29 October 2018 that will guide the agency in its efforts to develop Australian civil space capabilities and competencies, as well as establish a thriving space and satellite industrial base.

Spacety, the Chinese small satellite startup, is expected to carry out two further launch missions on behalf of clients in November and December 2018, but exact dates are not yet confirmed according to the intrepid Andrew Jones in GBTimes.

Australian New Space satellite communications company Fleet Space Technologies has selected U.S. commercial satellite launch company Rocket Lab to launch two Proxima small satellites from Rocket Lab's New Zealand launch complex in November 2018.

A Chinese Long March 2C satellite launch vehicle successfully took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Northwest China on Monday, 29 October 2018, lofting the China-France Oceanography Satellite (CFOSAT) as its primary payload as well as four Cubesats for Chinese New Space satellite manufacturer Spacety.

The Philippines' Diwata 2 remote sensing satellite was successfully launched into orbit on board a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) H-IIA satellite launch vehicle from Japan's Tanegashima Space Centre on Monday, 29 October 2018.

Chinese New Space launch company LandSpace suffered a failure of the third stage of its Zhuque-1 satellite launch vehicle Saturday, 27 October 2018, as it attempted to become the first Chinese private launch company to reach orbit, according to Andrew Jones in Space News.

New Zealand startup ZENNO Astronautics, a satellite propulsion and software company founded by three students at the University of Auckland, has won a NZ$25,000 (U.S.$16,240) share of a NZ$100,000 (U.S.$64,950) total prize fund of the university’s 2018 Velocity Challenge.

Spacety, a Chinese small satellite startup, is set to launch four CubeSats for a range of clients on a Long March 2C launch vehicle on Monday, 29 October 2018, according to GBTimes’Andrew Jones.

Pakistan announced on 25 October 2018 that it will send an astronaut into orbit by 2022 with the help of China, weeks after its arch-geopolitical rival India announced the start of its own human spaceflight programme, Gaganyaan, in cooperation with Russia, France, and other countries.