Europe

The European Court of Justice rejected a request by OHB System to suspend a decision by the European Space Agency (ESA) to exclude the German satellite company from a Galileo public contract, which went to its rivals Airbus and Thales Alenia Space, Reuters and other newswires reported. The court also dismissed OHB's application for interim relief, the reports said.

OHB LuxSpace, a subsidiary of the space and technology group OHB, has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop the Triton-X Heavy microsatellite platform, OHB said. Triton-X is a new line of microsatellites with a launch mass of up to 200 kg aimed at enabling affordable satellite constellations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The actual (r)evolution in the Outer-Space usage brings also a socio-economic change not sufficiently discussed in the community. In the discourse of risk in Outer-Space, the community keeps focusing mainly on risks resulting from space debris, and to some extent also discussing the potential impact from large constellations.

During this week’s Space Café, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Will Marshall, a scientist and the CEO and Co-Founder of Planet, the world’s largest Earth observation satellite network delivering a near-daily global dataset. It's at Planet where, for the past decade he has led the company in its development of advanced technologies

Isotropic Systems received a commitment of over €18.5 million from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the UK Space Agency to push the development of its broadband terminal technologies, the company said. The development contract ensures oversight of ESA's experts and the technical integrity of Isotropic's path to product launch in early 2022, Isotropic said.

OHB signed a subcontract with Thales Alenia Space to develop ESPRIT, the European module for the Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway. The subcontract with Thales Alenia Space as the program's prime contractor is worth EUR 58 million, OHB said. OHB will be responsible for the unpressurized structure and the thermal system of the ESPRIT module.

The European commissioner for internal market, Thierry Breton, does not see Eutelsat involved in the European broadband satellite constellation due to its investment in OneWeb, the FT reports. “I do not see how, structurally, an entity can have stakes in two competing projects,” the FT quotes Breton.

Iridium invests in the Scottish navigation service provider DDK Positioning, the Nasdaq-listed company said. Iridium has made a strategic investment in the Aberdeen, Scotland based provider of enhanced Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) accuracy solutions, the company said. DDK uses the Iridium network to provide global precision positioning services.

Ready for the drop: the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Roscosmos are preparing one of the two main parachutes for the ExoMars 2022 mission for its high-altitude tests in June, ESA said. The tests focused on demonstrating the readiness of new equipment developed by Airborne Systems, as well as verifying changes to the parachute and bag provided by Arescosmo.

ESA creates the new position of Director of Commercialisation, Industry & Procurement. The new director is to elaborate and implement ESA’s industrial policy, represent the Director General in all relations with industry, elaborate and implement the agency’s procurement rules, negotiate and manage procurements, ESA said.