North America

NASA builds a new Earth System Observatory to cope with climate change, forest fires and hurricanes and to support a “real-time agriculture”, the U.S. agency said. “With the Earth System Observatory, each satellite will be uniquely designed to complement the others, working in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth, from bedrock to the atmosphere,” NASA said.

NASA is planning to send its robot rover Viper to the Moon in late 2023, the agency said, to search for ice and other resources on and below the lunar surface. The Viper data would help the agency map resources at the lunar South Pole that could one day be harvested for long-term human exploration at the Moon, NASA said. 

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic completed the first human spaceflight from Spaceport America, New Mexico, the company said. The flight of VSS Unity which was released from the mothership VMS Eve with CJ Sturckow, as pilot-in-command, and Dave Mackay on board, sees New Mexico become the third US state to launch humans into space, the company said.

Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based provider of launch vehicles, spacecraft, and in-space services, will launch its Blue Ghost lunar lander on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in 2023, the company said. Blue Ghost will be carrying ten payloads for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, together with other commercial payloads.

Europe launches Moonlight, a bold proposal to put in place a commercially viable satellite constellation around the Moon. The European Space Agency (ESA) signed contracts with two consortia to develop a Moon constellation and provide telecommunications and navigation services for all kind of Moon missions.

The ‘fiber-in-the-sky” pioneer Mynaric will use its Optical Inter-Satellite Links (OISLs) to connect Cloud Constellation’s SpaceBelt LEO satellites, the company announced. Cloud Constellation is developing an LEO constellation known as SpaceBelt to provide Data-Security-as-a-Service (DSaaS) and further secure cloud storage and management services.

The satellite imagery and geospatial solutions provider Planet will launch on Astra and closed a multi-launch contract “with plans to begin launching in the near future”, the launch startup said. Astra also disclosed plans to launch payloads up to 500kg to a 500 km, mid-inclination (50 degree) orbit.

He did not welcome the uncontrolled return of China’s Long March launcher pieces for its Mars mission, but he congratulated China for the release of its first photos from the Zhurong Mars rover. “Congratulations to the China National Space Administration on receiving the first images from the Zhurong Mars rover,” the new NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

Paris, 19 May 2021. – York Space Systems wants to open a new “mega” manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Denver, to meet the growing demand from government and commercial customers, the company said. York's Manufacturing Technology Center will be the hub of the company's next phase to expand its production capacity by four times, the space mission solution provider said.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and The Strategist, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles. This is “SpaceX’s reusable rocket technology will have implications for Australia” by Malcolm Davis, originally published on 18 May 2021.