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Ball Aerospace, Loft Federal and Microsoft announced on the 11th of April that they are working together on the Space Development Agency (SDA)’s experimental testbed program, NExT, that will carry 10 satellites with experimental payloads into orbit. 

True Anomaly, Inc. has announced that it has come out of stealth and raised $30M in funding to date, including its recent $17M Series A led by Eclipse in partnership with Riot Ventures, Champion Hill Ventures, Space.VC, and Narya.

Eclipse has announced $1.23 billion in new funds, comprising $720 million for Eclipse Fund V and $510 million for Eclipse Early Growth Fund II. This brings the Company's total assets under management to ~$4 billion. With this capital, the Company intends to continue to partner with founders building ambitious companies tackling the world’s most pressing challenges. 

In the Ninth episode of Space Café Israel, Meidad Pariente is in conversation with Arie Halsband. Can you share something personal that isn’t written in your LinkedIn profile? Well, I'm not sure that nobody knows. But I'm enthusiastic about history, and read history books, as a hobby. And I think that history may teach us a lot about events, stressful situations, and how people behave in such situations.

Space Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 1983, offering information, education, and collaboration for the global space ecosystem, has announced the selection of Major General Heather Pringle, U.S. Air Force, as its new chief executive officer, effective July 1, 2023. Presently serving as Commander, Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Materiel Command, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Major General Pringle will be retiring in Summer 2023 after 32 years of military service.

ICEYE US Inc., a subsidiary of ICEYE, has announced a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with NASA. The contract is a five-year agreement for the purchase of synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) data for evaluation to determine their suitability for advancing NASA’s science and application goals. Since 2020, NASA’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program has been identifying, evaluating, and acquiring data from commercial sources aligned with NASA’s Earth Science Division objectives.

RAND researchers have assessed the progress that the commercial spaceflight industry has made in adopting voluntary safety standards, the industry’s progress in meeting key metrics set by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2017, and whether the industry has matured such that areas identified in FAA reports are ready for regulatory action. The Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 imposes a moratorium on safety regulations until the 1st of October, 2023. The FAA will be authorised to propose and issue regulations upon expiration of the moratorium. 

Dawn Aerospace, a space transportation company with operations in New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the United States, has announced the successful completion of the first rocket-powered flight campaign of its spaceplane, the Mk-II Aurora. The flights occurred at Glentanner Aerodrome on the 29, 30, and 31 March. For the Company, the accomplishment signifies a major milestone in its mission to revolutionize space access as well and thus provide end-to-end space transportation.

Everland, a US-based company representing a portfolio of high quality REDD+ forest conservation projects in the world, has named Space Intelligence, a nature mapping service based in Scotland, as its main data partner. Everland will use technology and data from Space Intelligence to build a comprehensive view of changes in land cover across three continents, covering a portfolio of site-based REDD+ projects and their surrounding regions. 

Spire Global, a space-to-cloud data and analytics company based in Virgina US, announced on the 3rd of April that they have been awarded a contract by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for commercial radio frequency (RF) remote sensing. This contract is part of the NRO’s Strategic Commercial Enhancements (SCE) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) program in September 2022.