Europe

European space tech company, The Exploration Company, has announced €40.5 million in Series A funding to enable an era of affordable, sustainable, and open space exploration. With the capital, The Exploration Company aims to commercialize its first full-scale space capsule (launch planned for 2026), finalize and test launch its second capsule demonstrator (launch planned for 2024), and expand the team.

ICEYE a Finnish-based provider of natural catastrophe solutions and insights has expanded its Esri Partner Network relationship with Esri, the market leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, location intelligence and mapping to provide its user with access to near-immediate natural catastrophe insights at the property level. Esri software is deployed in over 350,000 organizations. ICEYE offers plans to offer, in addition to flood data, other natural catastrophes in the futur

In the latest (12th) Space Café “Law Breakfast with Steven Freeland”, host Steven Freeland, Emeritus Professor of International Law at Western Sydney University, and Professorial Fellow at Bond University, Australia, and Co-Host Torsten Kriening, SpaceWatch.Global’s Publisher, welcomed Deepika Jeyakodi and Skip Smith to a wonderful picnic breakfast discussion outside the Madras High Court building.

Airbus has launched two defense research and development projects as part of the 2021 European Defense Fund (EDF). The EDF promotes cooperation among European companies and research institutes across the EU to strengthen Europe's resilience and strategic autonomy. In July 2022, the European Commission selected 61 R&T and R&D projects involving new technology areas and funded with €1.2 billion, including eight collaborative projects that Airbus is part of.

We're excited to welcome world-renowned photographer, Max Alexander, to the Space Cafe podcast. With over 25 years of experience in editorial and commercial photography, Max has captured the likes of Neil Armstrong, Stephen Hawking, and Nelson Mandela. He specializes in science communication through photography and has been a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Airbus has disclosed plans to recruit more than 13,000 people globally in 2023 to support its commercial aircraft ramp-up and meet challenges in defense, space, and helicopters. Furthermore, around 7,000 of these recruitments will be new posts across the company. Accordingly, the new hires will be instrumental in supporting its industrial ramp-up and Airbus’ ambitious decarbonization roadmap and preparing the future of aviation.

The Drag Augmentation Deorbiting System (ADEO) breaking sail was successfully deployed from the ION satellite carrier in late December 2022. A sail area of 3.6 square meters autonomously deployed from a small packing size of 10 x 10 x 10 cm to demonstrate deorbiting satellite technology.

In this Space Café Radio, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Simonetta Cheli, Director of Earth Observation Programmes and Head of ESRIN (D/EOP) at the European Space Agency (ESA) at the 15th European Space Conference in Brussels. This conference is one of the very important yearly high-level gatherings of the key stakeholders of the European space domain in the Egmont Palace in Brussels under the 2023 theme “Securing the Future of Europe in Space”.

AstroForge Inc. has announced that it has signed a contract with Orbital Astronautics Ltd (OrbAstro), a satellite and in-orbit service provider, to fly a 100kg-class spacecraft into deep space for an asteroid survey mission. The spacecraft will tentatively launch in late 2023 with Intuitive Machines, a space exploration, infrastructure, and services company, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission serves as a prospecting activity and stepping-stone towards AstroForge’s ambitions for asteroid mining.

In this German Space Café Radio – Space Café Germany Host Andreas Schepers spoke with Dr. Kai Noeske, Communication Programme officer for science at the European Space Agency (ESA). The interview was conducted during this year’s ILA Berlin which is the largest aerospace trade show in Germany which took place June 22 – 26, 2022.