Europe

Paris, 22 April 2021. – SpaceX and NASA are targeting tomorrow, Friday, 23 April, for the Crew-2 launch to the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX said. Falcon 9’s launch of Dragon’s second six-month operational crew mission to the ISS is scheduled for Friday, with a back-up opportunity on Monday, SpaceX said.

Paris, 22 April 2021. – Virgin Orbit will launch a series of six hyperspectral LEO satellites for the defense and security company QinetiQ and the geospatial analytics company HyperSat, Virgin Orbit said. Virgin Orbit will provide launch services for each satellite via its LauncherOne system. The first satellite will launch no earlier than 2023.

Paris, 21 April 2021. – European space experts call for a better control of space debris and regulation of space traffic, the Financial Times (FT) reports. The launch of thousands of new satellites in ‘mega-constellations’ to improve global internet access will exacerbate the growing problem of space debris, the FT quoted experts from a conference of the European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday.

Paris, 21 April 2021. – The Austrian new space investor Findus Venture works with the startup Spire Global to “tackle the growing problem of space debris”, the companies announced. They signed a second partnership agreement to launch the ADLER-2 satellite that aims to “further enhance orbital debris monitoring in low earth orbit, and expand novel atmospheric sensing capabilities".

Paris, 21 April 2021. – The European Space Agency (ESA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) cooperate “to better address major global issues such as food security, and to take further advantage of the digital transformation in agriculture”, ESA said.

A European-wide survey aimed at identifying user needs and use cases for future EU GOVSATCOM services will be carried out by EU Member States and EU agencies within the ENTRUSTED project. The survey is addressed to governmental and institutional users managing security-critical missions, operations and infrastructures. Information will be collected between April and June.

Can regulation match innovation in a space race? 3 experts discuss  The space race never ended. In fact, it just got a whole lot faster  Space engineering has always been a fundamentally future thinking activity, but in recent years mass investment in the industry coupled with technological development has been like a shot in the arm. The stakes couldn’t be higher and, as a result, discussions around the industry’s future success, safety and viability are now more important than ever. 

Since the early years of the last decade, the new space industry boomed, utilizing the rideshare (or hitchhiking - no towel needed) opportunities to reach orbit on almost all major launch vehicles. Dnepr, Soyuz, Vega, Long March, Electron, Falcon-9, LauncherOne, and many more all offer opportunities for small satellites. In fact, the industry is so thriving that two niche industries followed.

Paris, 19 April 2021. – The mobile satellite communications provider Inmarsat partners with OneOcean, a compliance and navigation service provider, to drive the “digitalisation of navigation and compliance in the maritime industry”, the companies announced. Under the agreement, OneOcean leverages Inmarsat’s technology platform to apply its software solutions and “transform the way voyage planning software is deployed, updated and integrated between ship and shore”.

by Annie Handmer and Steven Freeland SpaceWatch.Global has been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. This is “It’s not how big your laser is, it’s how you use it: space law is an important part of the fight against space debris”, originally published 14 April 2021 at The Conversation by Annie Handmer and Steven Freeland.