Europe

SPACEBEL has announced a contract with OHB Italia S.p.A. (Milano), the prime contractor of the Comet Interceptor mission, a European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) program.  As a result of the contract, SPACEBEL will provide the Central Software that manages the whole spacecraft, its platform equipment and its payload instruments. This new project will involve a team of up to ten SPACEBEL engineers over the next two years.

Space Product and Innovation S.r.l (SPiN), a provider of modular space manufacturing solutions, has announced the successful closure of a €1.63 million seed funding round. Galaxia, the Italian Technology Transfer Hub on Aerospace, led the round, with participation from Obloo Ventures, Scientifica Venture Capital and Innova Venture. This significant investment will propel SPiN's mission to revolutionize space manufacturing and democratize access to space.

Sequel to the investment agreement between Marubeni Corporation and D-Orbit from last November, D-Orbit has announced the successful first closing of its Series C funding round, raising about €100m with Marubeni Corporation leading the round. This consequently cements a long-term commercial collaboration between both parties that will potentially revolutionize the space logistics industry. Furthermore, it extends Marubeni agency mandate for D-Orbit to the entire Southeast Asia.

Voyager Space and Airbus have completed the transaction to create Starlab Space LLC, a transatlantic joint venture that will design, build, and operate the Starlab commercial space station. Alongside the joint venture execution, the Starlab team completed the station-level System Definition Review (SDR), a critical milestone assessing the technical and programmatic accountability of the program.

Sustainability reporting SaaS company Earth Blox has announced its availability on Google Cloud Marketplace. The company provides customers with a scalable and customisable platform to rapidly assess climate and nature-related risks and impacts for millions of assets and facilities worldwide. Google Cloud Marketplace lets users quickly deploy functional software packages that run on Google Cloud and allows customers to easily start up a familiar software package with services like Compute Engine or Cloud Storage, with no manual configuration required.

Orbex has announced the appointment of two technology and space sector experts as its new CEO and Executive Chair. Scale-up expert Phillip Chambers will consequently be joining Orbex as its new Chief Executive Officer, and Miguel Belló Mora will be leaving his post as Director General of the Spanish Space Agency to join as Executive Chair.

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present: The Space Café Podcast #97:  Building the perfect telescope: Giuseppe Racca and the Quest for the Dark Universe with ESA’s Euclid. In this engaging episode of the Space Cafe Podcast, Markus converses with Giuseppe Racca, the key figure behind the European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid mission. As a seasoned expert with extensive experience at ESTEC, Racca provides deep insights into the mission's goal to unravel the enigmatic forces of dark matter and dark energy. He discusses the challenges and triumphs of leading a major space exploration project and shares his passion for astrophysics and the pursuit of cosmic knowledge.

Maxar Space Systems has announced that the Ovzon 3 satellite has successfully launched aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and is performing as expected after launch. Maxar Space Systems manufactured the satellite for Ovzon at their Palo Alto, California, facility using its modular architecture platform. The satellite launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Jan 3, 2024.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has selected DCUBED as its first choice for space pin pullers for the critical Space Qualified Rover Lidar (SQRLi) Support project. The SQRLi project is a LIDAR engineering test unit with a 35m or greater range sensor array to provide a 40×40 field of view and operate under poor lighting conditions for rover-based missions and autonomous exploration of extreme environments like permanently shadowed lunar craters. 

As we close another remarkable year at SpaceWatch.Global, I want to take a moment to reflect on our journey through 2023, a year that has been both challenging and exhilarating in the world of space, space policy, space exploration and space technology. This year, we witnessed groundbreaking advancements and inspiring collaborations. From the launch of next-generation satellites that promise to revolutionize communication networks, to the deep-space missions that have brought us closer than ever to understanding the mysteries of our universe, 2023 has been a year of phenomenal achievements.