North America

During the sixth Space Café Canada event on April 29, 2022, host Jessica West sat down with Stephen Matier, President and CEO of Maritime Launch Services and Spaceport Nova Scotia, Canada’s first commercial space launch complex. In contrast to most other spaceports around the world, Spaceport Nova Scotia is intended to be fully commercial.

Vertically integrated geospatial company, Satellogic  announced that it has signed a multiple launch agreement with SpaceX to deploy 68 satellites. Satellogic builds and manages its own spacecraft, as well as markets the collected Earth observation data. This vertical integration reduces costs and enables the company to offer actionable data at a more affordable price.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts safely returned to Earth aboard the Dragon Endurance spacecraft in the Gulf of Mexico, completing the agency’s third long-duration commercial crew mission to the ISS, spending 177 days in orbit. NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer were recovered by SpaceX recovery vessels after a parachute-assisted splashdown

Rocket Lab has successfully deployed 34 satellites to orbit during its “There And Back Again” mission, which also included a mid-air capture of the Electron booster with a helicopter for the first time. This was the company’s 26th Electron mission. Rocket Lab has deployed a total of 146 satellites to orbit with the launch vehicle so far.

NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), who has a 20% share of the program and its costs, will conclude the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) mission, after a successful eight years of science, NASA announced. The observatory will end operations by the end of September this year.

Human spaceflight services provider and human-rated space infrastructure developer Axiom Space, signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) to fly a UAE professional crew member to the ISS on the NASA-SpaceX Crew-6 mission, Axiom said. The mission is expected to launch in 2023.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Amna Al Owais, the Chief Registrar of the DIFC Courts, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. Courts of Space: A Conversation about Dispute Resolution. Amna Al Owais is currently the Chief Registrar of the DIFC Courts and oversees operations and quality management, supervising the Courts’ Judicial Officers and Registry personnel

The second uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program launching Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is targeted for 19th May, Boeing said. During OFT-2, the company will test Starliner's and Atlas V’s capabilities from launch to docking and re-rentry operations.

Firefly says it has completed the Integration Readiness Review (IRR) of Blue Ghost M1, during which the team achieved key progress milestones across multiple areas. These include propulsion, core avionics, battery production, harness production, and facilities readiness to support lander integration.

Crew Dragon Freedom has successfully docked to the ISS, carrying ESA astronaut and mission specialist Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA astronauts  Kjell Lindgren (commander), Robert Hines (pilot) and Jessica Watkins (mission specialist). The crew has begun a six-month-long science mission as part of Expedition 67 and later Expedition 68.