North America

After over three years, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launched to space again carrying US military payloads as part of the USSF-44 mission to a geosynchronous Earth orbit. Falcon Heavy consists of three modified Falcon 9 first stage boosters.

In our next Space Café “Law Breakfast with Steven Freeland”, Host Steven Freeland, Emeritus Professor of International Law at Western Sydney University, Sydney and Professorial Fellow at Bond University, Australia, and Co-Host Torsten Kriening, SpaceWatch.Global’s Publisher, welcome Olga Volynskaya and Lucien Rapp at the magnificent café Le Bibent in Toulouse where Adam Smith began writing The Wealth of Nations.

Terran Orbital Corporation, a satellite-based solutions company, announced that it has entered into a note and warrant purchase agreement pursuant to which Terran Orbital received a $100 million investment from Lockheed Martin in exchange for convertible notes and warrants issued by Terran Orbital

Next-generation satellite communication systems provider SatixFy Communications, has gone public by completing its business merger with Endurance Acquisition following stockholder approval and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Prior to the business combination, Endurance and SatixFy entered into an OTC (over-the-counter) Prepaid Forward Purchase Agreement.

Global mobile satellite communications services provider Inmarsat, and global communications company Viasat got approval from the Australian Government's Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) for the planned combination of their businesses, Inmarsat said.

This year the 23rd AMOS (Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies) Conference, held in Hawaii from the 27th to the 30th of September 2022, hosted 1212 in-person attendees at the Wailea Beach Resort and 259 guests virtually. The conference sold-out way in advance. Maybe a sign of a post-Covid desire to travel, or maybe a sign that Hawaii never loses its exotic allure, nevertheless the enthusiastic attendance also reflected a growing interest in space sustainability and space commerce initiatives across all sectors, from national governments to private companies, from non-governmental entities to the science community.

ICEYE, a provider of natural catastrophe solutions and insights, has provided crucial flood insights over the past several months to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The company delivered its rapid flood extent and depth information through its partnership with New Light Technologies (NLT) and Bana Solutions (Bana).

Environment information services enterprise NorthStar Earth & Space, stated that the first three spacecraft of its 24-satellite constellation dedicated to commercial Space Situational Awareness (SSA) will be among space-to-cloud data and analytics company, Spire Global’s satellite payloads to be launched by Virgin Orbit in mid-2023.

The hard reality of energy dependency has since February hit the European continent, which has decided to give a decisive push to the search for alternative methods to generate green and independent energy. Space is part of this huge technological challenge, with Space Based Solar Panels (SBSP) being discussed more and more as a viable method to generate electricity directly from Space-based infrastructures. Needless to say, the technological, economical, political and environmental challenges are enormous.

Space sustainability company Privateer, is partnering with telescope manufacturer Celestron to crowdsource the transparency and predictability of space, Privateer said. Dr Moriba Jah, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist at Privateer ha been advocating for transparency, predictability, and accountability in space for years.