North America

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has announced it has signed a double-launch deal with NASA to deliver the Agency’s climate change research-focused mission, PREFIRE, to low Earth orbit in 2024.  The launches will consequently be the 7th and 8th missions Rocket Lab has launched for NASA since 2018.

Spire Global, provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, announced on the 9th of August that it was awarded a $6.5 million, 12-month contract renewal to continue participation in NASA’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program. The contract represents a $500,000 increase from the previous award of $6 million in June 2022. Spire will continue to deliver its comprehensive catalogue of Earth observation data, associated metadata and ancillary information from its fully deployed satellite constellation to NASA.

The UK Space Agency announced on the 10th of August a partnership between Britain’s Pulsar Fusion and the University of Michigan. The trans-Atlantic project will develop an international relationship concerning electric propulsion research with the USA. This collaboration will develop a relationship with the Plasma dynamics and Electric Propulsion Lab at the University of Michigan alongside Hall thruster companies: Electric propulsion and Hall effect thrusters are a key technology enabler for spacecraft.Pulsar Fusion (UK) and Starlight Engines (US), and the University of Southampton. 

Axiom Space, a Houston-based space infrastructure developer, and Poland, with support from ESA have signed an agreement to send an ESA astronaut to space on a future Axiom space mission. The mission and name of the Polish astronaut will be officially announced at a later date, following approval by NASA and its international partners. In April 2023, Axiom Space and the Swedish National Space Agency signed a letter of intent to send an ESA astronaut to the ISS. Through this agreement, the upcoming Axiom Space mission, Ax-3 expected to launch in January 2024, will be the first commercial mission to the ISS to include an ESA project astronaut. 

Michèle Flournoy, former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense, has joined the Board of Directors of Rivada Networks, Inc. Flournoy was Under Secretary of Defense for Policy during Barack Obama’s first term, serving as principle adviser to the Secretary of Defense in the formulation of national security and defense policy, oversight of military plans and operations, and in National Security Council deliberations. I

OneWeb has announced that it signed a distribution partnership agreement with IP Access International to deliver high-speed, low-latency broadband connectivity across the United States. Under this partnership, IP Access International will seamlessly blend OneWeb’s satellite services with all major terrestrial cellular providers in the U.S., providing resilient mobile communications through a single service plan and support center.

ARQUIMEA and Aerospacelab have announced the signature of a collaboration agreement at the 37th edition of the Small Satellite Conference at Utah State University. The new co-developed satellite will highlight optimized reliability and power management. Furthermore, it will deliver 1.5 kW of peak power and will be able to integrate payloads of 40 kg (~90 pounds). The satellite performance will also meet the demand for LEO missions, such as telecommunications constellations, synthetic aperture radar, Earth observation, and other applications requiring high reliability and onboard satellite processing capabilities.

Starfish Space announced on the 8th of August that it has been awarded $1.8 million by AFWERX, the innovation arm of the Department of the Air Force, to support continued development of the Cephalopod software for satellite guidance, navigation, and control. 

Summer is upon us, and as our gaze shifts towards the stars during those warm, clear nights, SpaceWatch.Global brings you its second collection or the Summer Listening Series. Based on the vote by our newsroom, we have mapped out an interstellar journey across five categories. This week we are starting with “Climate, Space and Earth.”

Blindness due to retina diseases affects over 200 million people globally, and that number is expected to reach 290 million by 2040. The two most common retina degenerative diseases are called Retinitis Pigmentosa and Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). Retinitis Pigmentosa affects one and a half million people globally. It starts with peripheral vision that goes dark, until the person is completely blind. AMD affects in the US alone 30 million people over 55, including 10 million in the blinding stage. AMD starts with central vision that goes dark, until the person is totally blind.