Middle East

The Saudi Ministry of Education has approved the teaching of earth and space sciences as part of the curricula for the secondary school system, starting the academic year 1445, corresponding to 2023-24, according to local reports. This is because the ministry aims to cultivate positive attitudes toward space science among male and female students. This will be in accordance with international best practices for academic courses, as well as recent developments and scientific and national standards in this field.

UAE Space Agency announced on the 28th of May the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt, the EMA. The concept plan of the mission to the main asteroid belt began in 2019. The Emirati spacecraft will take a 5 billion km trip to a region between Mars and Jupiter to study asteroids. “The initial idea of what should we do after the Emirates Mars Mission actually started one or two years prior to the launch of the Hope probe,” Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology, and chairwoman of the UAE Space Agency, exclusively told The National on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the 25th of May, GLOC2023, Global Space Conference on Climate Change, the first Space conference entirely dedicated to Climate Change closed it’s first edition in Oslo, Norway's capital city. One of the major takeaway points was the need to make data more accessible. “People who work in crucial and critical data should be able to use the data freely,” says Dr Emma Gatti, Editor-in-Chief at SpaceWatch.Global. 

Before the SpaceWatch.Global team attended the reception in the iconic townhall of Oslo, Dr Emma Gatti spote with Andrew Faiola of Astroscale UK and Europa about GLOC 2023 and the signed agreement during the conference

Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) has successfully launched four private astronauts from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station (ISS). The Ax-2 crew is now in orbit following a 5:37 p.m. EDT liftoff. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is now anticipated to dock to the space-facing port of the ISS Harmony module. around 9:16 a.m. (EDT) on Monday, May 22.

OQ Technology and IoT Squared have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for IoT connectivity using 5G protocol through Shabbab Al Ghamdi for IoT Squared and Omar Qaise, Founder and CEO of OQ Technology.

Kymeta has announced at CABSAT 2023 that telecom service provider Azyan Telecom signed a significant order for its Hawk™ u8 terminals connected by OneWeb. As a result, the signature will bring Kymeta and OneWeb’s unique LEO offering to Oman for the first time. The deal will enable the expansion of national telecom capabilities in the region, expediting efforts to implement ubiquitous high-speed, low-latency communications capabilities across the Sultanate.

SpaceIL has announced that several of the main donors to the Beresheet 2 mission have decided not to continue their investment in the project due to circumstances “that are unrelated to the organization and its partners," according to local sources. The donors had previously invested $45 million in the project that aims to land two modules on the moon.

In the Tenth episode of Space Café Israel, Meidad Pariente is in conversation with Dr. Shimrit Maman. Well, there are many things that people don't know about me. I don't know how many people know about me at all. I have to be completely honest, and this is very personal. I rarely update my LinkedIn page. Recently we had this great conference at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, we have a new student community called Space Gurion. And we had astronaut Eitan Stibbe over to speak.

Airbus’ latest geostationary Eurostar Neo satellite Arabsat BADR-8 has been shipped to Cape Canaveral, ready for launch. The satellite will provide connectivity over Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia and also features Airbus’ space demonstrator TELEO to provide space to ground optical communications at gigabit speeds. Airbus’ relationship with Arabsat stretches back 20 years, and BADR-8 is the eighth satellite the manufacturer has built for the satellite services provider in the Arab world.