Asia Pacific

Kleos Space, the Luxembourg-based New Space company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), has been busy since its successful IPO on 24 August 2018 that raised approximately U.S.$8 million.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is developing a small launch vehicle that weighs no more than 100 tons that can loft a 500 kg satellite into a 500 km orbit. ISRO is currently earning about U.S.$40 million annually through launching small satellites for foreign customers, and aims to increase its revenue by using the small launch vehicle to serve the burgeoning small satellite market.

SpaceWatch.Global last spoke to Gernot Groemer, Founder and Administrative Director of the Austrian Space Forum last year when we covered the Forum’s work and activities on the Mars Analogue missions.

Thai and Chinese officials have agreed to mutual trade and investments in a number of sectors – to include satellite manufacturing and applications – across and between Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) and the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Sky and Space Global (SAS), the New Space narrowband satellite communications company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, has been awarded a Company of the Year award by Frost & Sullivan as the best global nanosatellite company of the year.

The Japanese government has issued the 2018 policy guidelines for national defence that emphasises the growing threats emanating from China, North Korea, and Russia in the cyberspace and space domains.

Now that the euphoria over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement that India will launch its first Vyomanaut (derived from the Sanskrit word for space, or vyoma) into Earth orbit by 2022 has passed, the political contours of the announcement are beginning to take shape.

New Zealand has become a strategic partner of U.S. space-based geolocation company HawkEye 360, enabling the country to access the company's geoanalytical capabilities for maritime domain awareness, border security, and asset protection. Eagle Technology, a New Zealand-based company, will be the strategic partner for New Zealand, bringing HawkEye 360’s radio frequency (RF) geoanalytics to the country.

Following the landmark space cooperation agreement signed between India and France, both countries will start work on building joint maritime surveillance satellites in 2019, according to an official from the French national space agency, the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES).

The recent pronouncement by President Donald Trump that called for the creation of a separate U.S. Space Force has been met with some consternation by a number of commentators around the world. This reaction seems more concerned with the controversial persona of President Trump rather than with the policy substance behind the rhetoric.