Asia Pacific

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 44th episode in our podcast series The Space Cafe Podcast #044: Steven Freeland: Rethinking New Space. Episode 044 features a special guest Steven Freeland. In this episode, we take a bird's eye view on many things in the New Space scene. Steven Freeland teaches space law and hosts his own show, Space Cafe "Law Breakfast with Steven Freeland".

South-Korean Innospace and Norwegian Andøya Space signed a Memorandum of Understanding to launch into polar and sun-synchronous orbit from Norway, Andøya Space announced. Established in 2017, Innospace provides manufacturing and engineering services for aerospace and defence contractors.

China’s first smart manufacturing facility for small satellites utilises smart machinery and full automation in key production processes, thus increasing production efficiency by over 40 percent. The intelligent production line is capable of producing 240 small satellites a year.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup, 2021 Top Trends and Events”.

China’s main space contractor, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) announced it was planning over 40 orbital launches this year. These include six missions aiming to complete the Tiangong space station. A Long March 7 rocket will dock with Tiangong’s Tianhe

2021 finished strong, with another SPAC merger with a space-related (albeit not originally a space) company (Tomorrow.io), more fundraising by SpaceX, a few major private rounds, a couple of investments by Virgin Orbit (and hence yet further examples of a de-SPAC’d company deploying part of its cash towards investments) and even a small IPO (Sidus).

The U.S. committed to extend the operations of the International Space Station (ISS) through 2030, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced. The Biden-Harris Administration wants to continue to work with its international partners “to enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted in this unique orbiting laboratory through the rest of this decade”.

In this Space Café Radio – TOP-10 MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN SPACE IN 2021, contributing editor Dr. Emma Gatti talks about her thoughts on the previous year. 2021 has been an intense year for the Space sector. From breakthrough scientific achievements to thorny diplomatic accidents, the industry seems almost to be not keeping pace with itself.

So what DID happen? How do we know what happened? Was it appropriate for China to invoke Article V of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty? What level of oversight should the US have with commercial space activities? What level of transparency is appropriate? These are just a few of the questions prompted by China's 3 December 2021 note verbale to the United Nations.

The recent note verbale on two encounters between the Chinese space station and Starlink satellites has triggered a broader discussion on Space Traffic Management. But what do we actually mean by Space Traffic Management and what do we actually need? For many (including me), Space Traffic Management has a short-term and a long-term dimension.