Asia Pacific

Rocket Lab, the commercial small satellite launch company, successfully launched a small classified payload into low-Earth orbit (LEO) for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand on 31 January 2020.

2020 promises to be a big year in space, but not only for the well-known events you keep on hearing about, such as the expected crewed launches from U.S. soil on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and Boeing’s Starliner. In the background, thousands of new space entrepreneurs are executing on business plans that take advantage of the tremendous decrease of the costs of accessing space and operating in it. Many of these entrepreneurs have important milestones in 2020.

Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall was the guest of honour at the international Human Spaceflight Symposium organized in Bangalore, India, on 24 January 2020 by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA)

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will bolster the scale and scope of its geospatial monitoring toolkit thanks to collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that will expand the capacity of FAO's accessible platforms for forestry and land-use assessments.

Skylo, maker of the world’s most affordable and ubiquitous network that connects any machine or sensor, has announced that the company has emerged from stealth with U.S.$116 million in total funding.

Astroscale Holdings Inc., the market-leader in developing technology and services to remove space debris and secure long-term orbital sustainability, announced on 23 January 2020 it has been awarded a grant of up to U.S.$4.5 million from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s “Innovation Tokyo Project” to build a roadmap for commercializing active …

Rocket Lab, the global leader in small satellite launch, has announced today that it will launch a dedicated mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

In remarks made marking the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States and Japan at both a commemorative ceremony and in the Japanese Diet, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged that Japan will make efforts to counter threats in space and cyberspace and that the Japanese Self Defense Forces (SDF) will stand up its Space Domain Mission Unit (SDMU) in April 2020, with the aim of having it fully operational by 2022.

China is looking forward to 2020 being a banner year for its ambitious space programme, according to a Chinese government report released on 17 January 2020.

India’s latest communication satellite GSAT-30 was successfully launched from the Spaceport in French Guiana during the early hours of 17 January 2020.