Asia Pacific

Space Café "Law Breakfast with Steven Freeland" will analyse current space developments with a legal focus. It will, at the same time discuss and ‘demystify’ the law for everyone. In our next Space Café “Law Breakfast with Steven Freeland”, Host Steven Freeland, Emeritus Professor of International Law at Western Sydney University, Sydney and Professorial Fellow at Bond University, Australia,

China has successfully docked Wentian, the second module of its Tiangong space station to the first, Tianhe section, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said. The rendezvous and docking process with the forward port of Tianhe went smoothly, taking approximately 13 hours. Wentian will be moved to a side port with the help of the module's 10-meter-long robotic arm.

Australia selected Airbus as the strategic partner for Defence’s Resilient Multi-mission Space STaR Shot, a strategic research program established to develop future space capabilities for the Australian Defence Force (ADF), Australia’s Defence said. Satellite developer and integrator, Airbus Defence and Space, was chosen by a panel of experts from Defence and the Australian Space Agency.

The Australian Government has granted approvals to launch two suborbital “Kestrel I” rockets from the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex by rocket manufacturer ATSpace, and spaceport provider, Southern Launch, the companies announced. Missions VS02 and VS03 will send the experimental Kestrel I rockets to sub-orbital trajectories to test the rocket design.

In 1985, the Australian ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood had an extraordinary experience. She was attacked by a crocodile while canoeing in Kakadu National Park in northern Australia. She fought the crocodile off three times and survived; but it had a profound effect on her philosophy.

The Indian Space Reasearch Organisation (ISRO) said the launch of the country's first manned space flight, the Gaganyaan mission, cannot happen until at least 2024 as the agency wants to ensure that all safety systems are in place.  ISRO stated that tests were being conducted cautiously with regard to safety.

The developer, owner and operator of the Arnhem Space Centre (ASC), Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), successfully completed Australia’s first commercial space launch on the Gove Peninsula in Australia’s Northern Territory, in cooperation with NASA, ELA reported. The BBIX rocket launch was NASA’s first launch from a fully commercial spaceport and the first of three rocket launches.

The Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG) conference took place from May 31 to June 3 in Singapore, the Lion City. Composed of several events such as the Asia Satellite Business Week, BroadcastAsia, CommunicAsia, ATxAI and others, it constituted a golden opportunity to catch up with the state-of-the-art technology and emerging trends across many parts of the tech sector.

Arianespace’s Ariane 5 launch vehicle has successfully placed two telecommunications satellites into geostationary orbit: MEASAT-3d for the Malaysian operator MEASAT, and GSAT-24 built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on behalf of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), ArianeGroup said. The launch was the first mission of the year, and the 113th overall.

Leading South Australian space companies announced an exciting collaboration that will explore launching a rocket and a spacecraft with an interfaced electronic warfare payload from Southern Launch’s Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex.  Southern Launch, ATSpace Australia, Asension, and Inovor Technologies signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Adelaide.