North America

As today, June 30, is International Asteroid Day, Test and Radiation (TRAD) is taking the opportunity to look back at its contribution to the DART mission. DART, or Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was a C-class mission of NASA. It was the very first mission dedicated to the study and demonstration of an asteroid deflection method. Furthermore, the mission's objective was to evaluate the use of a spacecraft's kinetic impact to modify the asteroid's trajectory so that it avoids the Earth.

AIRMO, an American start-up providing close to real-time data on CH4 and CO2 emissions, announced its pre-seed round of €5.2 million. The round consists of money from investors as well as a €3.7 million contract by the European Space Agency through its InCubed co-funding program run by the ESA Φ-lab. This pre-seed round will enable AIRMO to launch its first of twelve satellites into orbit. 

Our Space Café “33 minutes with Kevin O’Connell – from zombie statistics to the trillion-dollar space economy” took place on Tuesday, 27th June. Kevin O’Connell has had a diverse career in many sectors in commerce and intelligence. He has spent over three decades working on space commercialisation, including in his role as the Director of the Office of Space commerce with the US Department of Commerce. 

Earth Blox, a Scottish geospatial platform for businesses and financial institutions, announced on the 27th of June that it has joined the Google Cloud Partner Advantage program as a technology partner and authorised Google Earth Engine trainer. The collaboration provides Google Cloud customers with climate and nature analytics to accelerate their sustainability transition and meet regulatory requirements. 

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson led a ribbon cutting ceremony on the 21st of June to showcase a new Earth Information Center at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The centre is partly a physical space as well as a virtual experience that will show how NASA can improve lives in the face of disasters, environmental challenges and our changing world. 

Virgin Galactic has announced the four-person crew and target date for its Galactic-01 commercial spaceflight. The three-person crew from the Italian Air Force and National Research Council of Italy will board VSS Unity for a 90-minute flight to conduct a series of suborbital science experiments.

Ecuador and India have joined the ever-growing list of countries to become parties to the Artemis Accords, becoming the 26th and 27th signatories, respectively. Ecuador formally joined the Accords during a ceremony at the Ecuador embassy in Washington on Wednesday, with Karen Feldstein, NASA associate administrator for International and Interagency Relations, participating in the ceremony for the agency, and Gustavo Manrique Miranda, Ecuador’s foreign affairs minister, for Ecuador. On the other hand, the White House disclosed India's decision to become a signatory on Thursday, with NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) also agreeing to a joint mission to the International Space Station in 2024,

Rocket Lab, an American aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider and NorthStar, a Canadian commercial service that monitors space, announced on the 19th of June that Rocket Lab will launch the first satellites dedicated to NorthStar’s commercial Space Situational Awareness (SSA) services. The initial block of four satellites, assembled and operated by Spire Global, are scheduled for deployment on Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle in the autumn of 2023.

In this  Space Café Radio -  SpaceWatch.Global team's Dr. Emma Gatti and Torsten Kriening spoke with Susie Perez Quinn, NASA's Chief of Staff, Dr. Karen St. Germain,  NASA's Division Director of the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate, and Dr. Kate Calvin, NASA's Chief Scientist and Senior Climate Advisor. The episode was recorded in Oslo during GLOC -  Global Space Conference on Climate Change.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Kevin O’Connell, Founder and CEO, Space Economy Rising, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, Publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. As strategic and economics conditions change, there are healthy questions about the speed and direction of the future space economy. What are the underlying factors driving the space economy, and how can we distinguish between hype and real drivers?