Europe

This is Part 1 of a review of Space Resources Week 2022, the descriptive part. Part 2 may appear in a subsequent edition with the author’s more personal views on several space resource utilization topics in the context of SRW. We recently attended online the 2022 hybrid 4th edition of Space Resources Week, held in Luxembourg from May 3 to 5.

Airbus announced it has been awarded a contract from ESA to further develop the implementation of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). The mission design and final technology development are due to be completed by 2024, with a planned launch in the late 2030s.

This Space Café Brazil will feature Prof. Daniel Freire e Almeida, coordinator of the postgraduate course in law and space policy and Suyan Cristina Malhadas, researcher in space law, in conversation with Ian Grosner, Correspondent of SpaceWatch.Global for Brazil. Live from the II Workshop on Space Resources at the Catholic University of Santos.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Adnan Al Muhairi, Chief Technology Officer at Yahsat, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. Why Next Gen? - The Thuraya Programme. In his role as Chief Technology Officer, Adnan Al Muhairi is committed to designing and developing technological solutions with his team to better serve Yahsat and Thuraya customers.

German-based risk and disaster intelligence company Mayday.ai, and Airbus have entered into a strategic partnership to enhance risk and disaster intelligence. Airbus’ data will power Mayday.ai’s next-generation platform supporting decision-makers in protecting lives, property and the environment.

Norwegian Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace has placed an order for three microsatellites with Lithuanian mission integrator NanoAvionics for a space-based maritime surveillance mission covering the North Sea area, Kongsberg said. The satellites will be based on NanoAvionics’s MP42 microsatellite bus.

This Space Café Young Global Talents will feature Rolf Densing, ESA Director of Operations and Head of the European Operations Centre in Darmstadt, in conversation with Chiara Moenter, event coordinator and moderator at SpaceWatch.Global and Frederik Wissner, representative of ELSA Frankfurt am Main, Germany. ELSA is the renowned European Law Students Association.

State Secretary Martina Hirayama and Joseph Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation between Switzerland and ESA establishing a joint Centre of Excellence at the Paul-Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland, ESA said.

In April 2022, ESA's new Center for Space Safety was opened in Darmstadt. Andreas Schepers spoke with Dr. Holger Krag, Head of ESA's Space Security Program, about the ESA program and the tasks of the new center. At the beginning of the interview, Krag explains the ESA program and outlines the three areas of space weather, asteroid defense and space debris.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) announced they are opening up the Large Diameter Centrifuge (LDC) facility at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, to UN Member States.