North America

The U.S. Air Force asked OneWeb and Hughes to connect the Arctic, the companies announced. Hughes and OneWeb announced their selection by the U.S. Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) “to demonstrate managed LEO satellite communications (SATCOM) services to connect the Arctic region to sites around the globe”, the companies said in a statement.

The fifth attempt succeeded: SpaceX successfully completed a high-altitude flight test of a Starship prototype from its Starbase in Texas yesterday. It was the fifth attempt of a high-altitude test of Starship and the first one that did not end up with an explosion.

Have a seat: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin offers one seat in the New Shepard maiden flight which is planned for the 20 July, the company said. “On July 20th, New Shepard will fly its first astronaut crew to space. We are offering one seat on this first flight to the winning bidder of Blue Origin’s online auction,” Blue Origin said.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Will Marshall, CEO and Co-Founder of Planet, San Francisco, USA, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. The European Commission demonstrated unprecedented leadership in December 2019 when it unveiled its flagship action plan to tackle climate change, the European Green Deal.

Firefly Aerospace completed a $75 million series A financing round, valuing the company at more than $1 billion, the company said. The interest “far exceeded” the $75 million equity being offered, Firefly said. Its seed investor, Noosphere Ventures, therefore sold “approximately $100 million of its holdings.

One for Eutelsat, one for Atos: the satellite operator said it was chosen by Global Eagle to increase its mobility capabilities over North America. Under this multi-year agreement, Eutelsat provides Global Eagle for its entire North-American coverage with extensive additional capacity to augment the company’s connectivity services for mobility customers, Eutelsat said.

The former Aerojet Rocketdyne executive Frank Slazer is the new President and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, the organization said. The American non-profit organization engages in “reinforcing the value and benefits of human space exploration and space science” in the U.S.

The space SPAC market took a breather in April, with no announced transactions, but we did have a traditional IPO (remember those?) by MDA in Canada. SpaceX and OneWeb also helped pick up the slack and together raised more money than last month’s three SPAC transactions combined, without even counting Astranis’s US$250 million round.

Following complaints by competitors, the U.S. space agency NASA suspended SpaceX’s work on the Human Landing System (HLS). Pursuant to protests of Blue Origin and Dynetics to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), NASA “instructed SpaceX that progress on the HLS contract has been suspended”, NASA said.

Luxembourg, 3 May 2021. – Brazil will launch on Virgin Orbit, the company announced. The Brazilian Space Agency (Agência Espacial Brasileira; AEB) and the Brazilian Air Force (Força Aérea Brasileira, FAB) selected Virgin Orbit “to bring orbital launch capability to Brazil, a country which has never successfully completed a domestic launch to orbit”, the company said.