Europe

SpaceWatch.Global has been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts by Steven Freeland. This is “What Sort of Space “Race” Should We Be Pursuing?”, originally published 15 December 2021 at Australian Institute of International Affairs by Steven Freeland. If a war in space does take place, the devastation would be long-lasting and perhaps irreversible.

Airbus partners with OneWeb to provide Low Earth Orbit (LEO) communication services for military and governmental use, the companies said. Airbus and OneWeb plan to develop a complete range of secure services dedicated to the specific needs of armed forces for all their operations on land, at sea, and in the air.

Ororatech announced it has signed a pilot contract with the Green Triangle Fire Alliance (GTFA) for satellite-based Wildfire Intelligence Service over the 2021/22 fire season. The GTFA is located along the border of South Australia and Victoria. It represents 17% of the country’s plantations, comprising over 320,000 hectares of pine and eucalypt trees.

On 15 November 2021, a Russian ground-based DA-ASAT (direct ascent anti-satellite) interceptor, ‘Nudol’, hit defunct Russian spy satellite Cosmos 1408, built and launched in the 1980s, at an altitude of 480 km. The destruction caused a cloud of debris of about 1500 pieces and forced the crew of the ISS, four Americans, two Russians, and a German,

UN:IO consortium members will conduct a feasibility study to create a sovereign communications network for Europe by 2025, the company announced. The European Commission funded the project with €1.4M. The consortium comprises 14 NewSpace companies led by satellite manufacturer Reflex Aerospace, launch provider Isar Aerospace and laser specialist Mynaric.

Launch service provider Isar Aerospace and the German Space Agency at DLR have announced they selected the institutional payloads for Spectrum’s first flight. The rocket launch is planned for the end of 2022 as part of the microlauncher competition.  Five institutions from Germany, Norway, and Slovenia with a total of seven small satellites won the Announcement of Opportunity.

The recently established consortium of 22 European companies from 8 countries, New Symphonie, has won a concept study for the European Commission (EC) aiming to develop new ideas for an innovative European broadband constellation, Euroconsult reported. The project is called “New Space solutions for long-term availability of reliable, secure, cost-effective space-based connectivity”.

The European Space Agency (ESA) prepares the post-ISS era and Europe´s continued presence in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and solicitates private companies to work and collaborate with ESA on commercial concepts. ESA launched a project called SciHab (Science and Habitation), “an orbital human-tended platform with a modular design and open to commercial services”, the agency said.

The data analytics provider Spire Global received approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to fly its Adler-1 satellite on Virgin Orbit’s upcoming, the company said. The satellite, which was integrated at Virgin Orbit’s Long Beach facility in the U.S. within 36 hours, will fly as the third customer in the “Above the Clouds” mission,

No SPAC mergers with space companies in November, but a blockbuster round of US$1.4 billion for Sierra Space. We also had ‘traditional’ public listings by Telesat and Mynaric (of ADSs). It was also an interesting month on the M&A front with deals including Redwire / Techshot, Inmarsat / Viasat, Planet / VanderSat, and Rocket Lab / Planetary Systems Corp