Middle East

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has signed a cooperation agreement with New Space satellite servicing company Effective Space where IAI will be the prime contractor for Effective Space’s SPACE DRONETM capability in return for IAI securing equity investment for Effective Space. Effective Space is developing a unique, small spacecraft to extend …

According to several Bahraini and Russian media sources, the Bahraini and Russian governments are in discussions about possibly sending candidates from the small Persian Gulf island to Russia for astronaut training and launch into Earth orbit. “The representatives of the Bahrain Space Science Agency attended a spacecraft launch at Baikonur …

Firefly is well and truly ignited again. A new formation of the company with solid investors behind it is now paving the way for what has the potential to be a very successful business. International asset management firm, Noosphere Ventures, as lead investor, is set to take Firefly to the …

Moroccan media is reporting that the North African country’s second high-resolution Earth observation satellite, the Mohammed VI-B, is due to be launched on an Arianespace launch vehicle from the Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana in November 2018 on either the Vega or Soyuz ST-A Fregat-M satellite launch vehicles. The …

The Israeli government has made the decision to subsidize Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in designing and building a communications satellite following the decision by Spacecom earlier this year to tap U.S. satellite manufacturer Space Systems Loral (SSL) to build its AMOS-8 satellite instead of giving the contract to IAI. The …

The United Arab Emirates has announced the names of its first two astronauts – one of whom will be launched by Russia to the International Space Station (ISS) in April 2019. Dr. Sultan Saif Al Neyadi, an expert in information technology, and Hazza Al Mansouri, a UAE Air Force pilot, …

The EgyptSat-A, also known as MisrSat-A, high-resolution Earth observation satellite is due to be launched by Russia in November 2018, just as the threat to Egypt’s borders and unrest in the Sinai Peninsula is becoming more acute. Egyptian security and military forces are under growing pressure to stop insurgent and …

KhalifaSat, the UAE Earth observation system that is also the first Emirati-built satellite, will be launched from Japan on 29 October 2018. KhalifaSat has been in development since 2013, and will be lofted into orbit from the Tanegashima Space Centre in Japan. The earth observation satellite will join the UAE’s …

SpaceWatch.Global last spoke to Gernot Groemer, Founder and Administrative Director of the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) last year when we covered the Forum’s work and activities on the Mars Analogue missions. This week, we speak to Groemer as a founding member of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) which aims …

In a textbook example of how cyber activity is often a mirror of geopolitics, a Turkish hacktivist group called Ayyildiz Tim has been accused of hacking and then hijacking the social media accounts of prominent U.S. journalists to spread messages in support of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. These cyber …