North America

Sidus Space, a Space and Defence-as-a-Service satellite company, announced on the 2nd of May the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Lulav Space, an Israeli robotics company specialising in space applications, to cooperate in the US market by providing a complete guidance navigation and control (GN&C) solution for both lunar satellite and lunar lander missions. 

The XPRIZE wildfire competition has launched with an event in Washington D.C., on April 21. The launch brought together powerful voices of persons fighting wildfires on the frontlines, as well as leading experts in the field, to discuss the prize’s urgency and future positive impact on communities, wildlife, and biodiversity.

SES has successfully launched two additional O3b mPOWER satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The second pair of O3b mPOWER satellites will consequently join the first two satellites launched in December 2022, which have arrived at their target medium earth orbit (MEO) and are currently undergoing in-orbit checkout.

CisLunar Industries has received a patent for its Space Foundry from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on April 25, 2023, under the number 11,634,241. As a result, the patent grants CisLunar Industries the exclusive rights to use and license the technology covered by the patent for a period of 19 years

Voyager has announced three executive appointments as the Company aims to continue growing its team. The new appointments include Phil De Sousa as Chief Financial Officer, Abby Dickes as Chief Marketing Officer, and Ashley Donlon as Chief Human Resources Officer. 

Terran Orbital Corporation has announced the receipt of a further milestone payment alongside the completion of the screening of the industrial partners as well as trade studies that will support the acquisition process and system engineering for the Company’s 300 spacecraft, $2.4 billion contract with Rivada Space Networks.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of Wideband Digital Intermediate Frequency (DigIF) for satellite operators using Software Defined Radios (SDRs) with AWS Ground Station. With Wideband DigIF, satellite operators can use an SDR of their choice to perform demodulation and decoding of data in their Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), resulting in more control and flexibility of downlink data.

Hydrosat has announced $20 million in new funding, including a $15M Series A round and more than $5M in non-dilutive funding. The funding will enable the Company to grow and develop its constellation of satellites and analytics to measure water stress and climate impact. Statkraft Ventures led the latest round of funding, and it included new investors Blue Bear Capital and Hartree Partners. All three firms have an interest in climate tech. 

Virgin Galactic has announced a successful suborbital test of the VSS Unity spaceplane and will begin rocket-powered spaceflight tests in the coming months. The Spaceplane completed its final glide test during a flight in New Mexico. During the test, VMS Eve took off from Spaceport America with Unity between its twin fuselages at 12:35 UTC. After reaching an altitude of 47,000 feet (14.3 kilometers), Eve released Unity at 13:47 UTC, with the spaceplane subsequently gliding back to the runway in New Mexico, testing modifications to the spacecraft's flight controls and handling.

Neumann Space has entered into an agreement to deliver its propulsion system, the Neumann Drive, to Colorado-based CisLunar Industries, a designer and manufacturer of Modular Space Foundries, to help progress a U.S. Space Force-funded project that will create a circular propulsion ecosystem.