North America

Paris, 22 April 2021. – Virgin Orbit will launch a series of six hyperspectral LEO satellites for the defense and security company QinetiQ and the geospatial analytics company HyperSat, Virgin Orbit said. Virgin Orbit will provide launch services for each satellite via its LauncherOne system. The first satellite will launch no earlier than 2023.

Paris, 21 April 2021. – European space experts call for a better control of space debris and regulation of space traffic, the Financial Times (FT) reports. The launch of thousands of new satellites in ‘mega-constellations’ to improve global internet access will exacerbate the growing problem of space debris, the FT quoted experts from a conference of the European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday.

Paris, 20 April 2021. – 9 times 5: Amazon contracted nine Atlas V rockets to launch its Project Kuiper broadband constellation, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced. With Project Kuiper, Amazon wants to increase global broadband coverage through a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).  

Paris, 20 April 2021. – 39.1 historic seconds: NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity succeeded to become the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The Ingenuity team at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover last night.

Can regulation match innovation in a space race? 3 experts discuss  - The space race never ended. In fact, it just got a whole lot faster - Space engineering has always been a fundamentally future thinking activity, but in recent years mass investment in the industry coupled with technological development has been like a shot in the arm.

Paris, 19 April 2021. – China intends to expand its destructive anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon arsenal to target U.S. satellites, the annual report of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) concluded.„China has already fielded ground-based ASAT missiles intended to destroy satellites in LEO and ground-based ASAT lasers probably intended to blind or damage sensitive space-based optical sensors on LEO satellites,” the unclassified report published last week found.

Paris, 19 April 2021. – U.S. president Joe Biden names former NASA astronaut Pam Melroy to serve as the agency’s deputy administrator, alongside Bill Nelson who was named 14th NASA administrator in March. “Pam’s experience as an astronaut, space shuttle commander, and U.S. Air Force test pilot would bring to NASA a unique perspective on the opportunities and challenges facing the agency,” acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk commented.

Paris, 19 April 2021. – It’s a big deal: NASA has selected SpaceX's Starship to land two American astronauts on the Moon. The firm-fixed price, milestone-based contract total award value is $2.89 billion, NASA said. The U.S. space agency picked SpaceX over Blue Origin to develop its first commercial human lander that will carry the next two American astronauts to the lunar surface as part of its Artemis program, NASA said.

This Space Café Canada will feature Dr. David Kendall, Founding Member at Outer Space Institute, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in conversation with Dr. Jessica West, Senior Researcher at Project Ploughshares and a friend of SpaceWatch.Global. Does space need more Canada? Canada has a strong past in space, but what is the future?

by Annie Handmer and Steven Freeland SpaceWatch.Global has been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. This is “It’s not how big your laser is, it’s how you use it: space law is an important part of the fight against space debris”, originally published 14 April 2021 at The Conversation by Annie Handmer and Steven Freeland.