Middle East

Luxembourg, 1 December 2020. – Propelling innovation: the Israeli startup NewRocket develops a new gel-fueled space engine that is “powerful, controllable and environmentally friendly”, the company said. The “groundbreaking PowerGel-propellant offers green propulsion, without compromising on high performance and full active thrust control,” NewRocket claims. “(T)he gel propellant is safe …

Thuraya, leader in mobile satellite services based in the UAE, announced a few weeks ago the order of the new Thuraya 4-NGS satellite. SpaceWatch.Global’s Editor-in-Chief Markus Payer had the opportunity to talk to Thuraya’s CEO Ali Al Hashemi. Markus Payer: When you ordered your next big satellite, Thuraya 4-NGS, you …

Luxembourg, 26 November 2020. – From interim to permanent: Gilat Satellite Networks has appointed its former CFO Adi Sfadia as new CEO, the Nasdaq-listed company said. Adi Sfadia served as Gilat’s interim CEO since July when Yona Ovadia stepped down as Gilat’s CEO. Prior to that, Sfadia held the position …

Paris, 20 November 2020. – Israel is going to send its second-ever astronaut into space, the Israelian press reported. The former fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe is to head to the International Space Station (ISS) late next year, the Times of Israel reported. The newspaper cited an announcement made at President …

Paris, 17 November 2020. – The Astrobiology Journal has published the findings of the international simulated Mars mission AMADEE-18, which took place in February 2018 in the desert of Oman. From February 1 to 28, 2018, the Austrian Space Forum lead the mission in the Dhofar region in the Sultanate …

by Anushka Sharma, Founder – Naaut For the first time, water has been discovered on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places. On 26 October 2020, Scientists using NASA’s telescope on an …

Luxembourg, 20 October 2020. – The European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex contracted Airbus and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to operate a long-endurance maritime aerial surveillance system for the Mediterranean Sea, Airbus announced. The service includes the provision of a Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) platform and all necessary …

Luxembourg, 18 October 2020. – The mobile satellite operator Thuraya launches a cloud-based tracking and monitoring service for fishing vessels, the company announced. Thuraya SatTrack provides interactive, real-time fleet tracking to monitor vessels, the Dubai-based operator said. It enables operations with detailed maps, up-to-date weather layers, real-time fish-catch reports and …

Luxembourg, 18 October 2020. – The University of Texas at Austin, U.S., cooperates with the National Space & Science Technology Centre of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) University on space science and research, the university said. The two universities commit to collaborate “across a range of areas including space debris mapping, radio …

by Jose Salgado It’s no longer a matter of who arrives first but who stays the longest. A permanent human presence on the Moon is vital to create the lunar economy. This is what NASA’s Artemis program intends to do as early as 2024 at a cost of $30 billion. …