North America

The Russian state space corporation Roscosmos is in talks with the European Space Agency (ESA) to join the project for a Russian-Chinese lunar station, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin told reporters according to the news agency Interfax. "We are actively in talks with many players.

NATO’s defense spendings are likely to increase driven by expansion into space, the data and analytics group GlobalData. The comment follows the news that NATO leaders have declared that “attacks in, to and from space against any member will now trigger the mutual defense agreement and obligate allied members to respond”, GlobalData said.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Joint Air Power Competence Centre, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “NATO Space – Panel Introduction”, originally published on the Joint Air Power Competence Centre website

A lot of global goodwill and a declaration of deterrence: The Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX 2021) opened in St. Petersburg with high-level commitments from different nations to continue to internationally cooperate in space. NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson announced his wish to extend the collaboration on the International Space Station (ISS) until 2030;

Brazil is next: the country signed the Artemis Accords, “affirming its commitment to ensuring sustainable space exploration that adheres to a common set of principles benefiting all of humanity”, the U.S. space agency NASA said. Marcos Pontes, Brazil’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, signed the document during a ceremony with President Jair Bolsonaro and other officials, NASA said.

Japan is the fourth country in the world – after the United States, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates – to have a dedicated law for the exploration and exploitation of space resources. The law provides that Japanese private business operators shall be permitted to engage in the exploration and development of space resources.

The satellite industry has lost one of its best and most committed communication executives: Yves Feltes. Yves died this week in a hospital in Luxembourg. He headed and managed the communication of SES, one of the world’s largest satellite operators based in Luxembourg, for more than 20 years.

Simon van den Dries is the General Manager at Spire Maritime. Spire is a space-to-cloud data and analytics company that specializes in the reaching of global data sets powered by a large constellation of nanosatellites. This past week, space-interested students Bano Barzingi and Chiara Moenter, sat down with Simon to discuss his work at Spire, as well as the factors of space sustainability trends

Thales Alenia Space will provide the optical intersatellite links for Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation. As prime contractor for the construction of Telesat’s new LEO constellation, it will provide its Swiss Optel-C product to connect the 298 satellites, the company said.

The electric propulsion producer Phase Four closed a $26 million Series B investment round, pushing ahead with the development of its plasma propulsion engine Maxwell, the Californian startup said. The round was led by the venture capital firm New Science Ventures, Phase Four said.