North America

By Ken Hodgkins The COVID 19 pandemic has ripped apart all sectors of the world’s societal fabric and rendered economies to a state of paralysis. Multilateral space diplomacy has not been immune to this chaos. This year for the first time the Legal Subcommittee of the UN Committee on the …

Astroscale U.S. Inc., the US unit of Astroscale Holdings Inc., a market leader in securing long-term orbital sustainability, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the intellectual property and other assets and to hire certain members of the staff of Effective Space Solutions R&D Ltd. (ESS), …

NASA has selected Astrobotic for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II award to continue its development of UltraNav, a low-cost, autonomous, visual navigation system for spacecraft. The system has wide-ranging applications, from the servicing of Earth satellites to journeys to challenging space destinations such as the lunar poles …

MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) announced on 2 June 2020 that retired astronaut Tim Kopra will join its leadership team as Vice President of Robotics and Space Operations, effective immediately. As the leader for this business area, he will be responsible for the work of the robotics and space operations …

The rapidly growing New Space startup company Rhea Space Activity (RSA),  has been tapped by the United States Air Force (USAF) to develop a telescopic mirror that can be built and deployed in Earth’s orbit, thus eliminating the need to launch detection equipment from the Earth’s surface, potentially saving millions …

Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded a not-to-exceed US$2.37 billion undefinitized contract modification for Phase 1 of the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) Polar program from the United States Space Force (USSF). The contract modification from the USSF Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) covers the design and development …

By Dr. Deganit Paikowsky Last week, NASA released “The Artemis Accords: Principles for a Safe, Peaceful and Prosperous Future.” The aim of the Artemis program, according to NASA, is to “[L]and the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024, heralding in a new era for space …

The Space Foundation builds awareness of the benefits of space through its Space Certification™ program, which awards a “seal of approval” to companies whose products and services can demonstrate a viable link to the space program. Much of the technology we use daily was originally developed for space exploration and …

Private equity firm AE Industrial Partners (AEI) announced on 1 June 2020 that it has acquired Deep Space Systems (DSS), a pioneer in the space industry providing mission-critical payloads, systems, and components. AEI will combine Deep Space Systems with Adcole Space to form Redwire, a next generation space technology platform …

By Jessica West and Gilles Doucet When we consider the norms that govern human use of outer space from the perspective of space security, we face some serious questions. How do we think that this body of rules and accepted behaviours and attitudes—this normative landscape—can be strengthened and extended to …