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On 11 November 2021, German ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and his NASA colleagues Kayla Barron, Raja Chari and Thomas Marshburn launched to the International Space Station (ISS). As part of his Cosmic Kiss mission, Maurer will spend around six months on the space station and conduct numerous experiments.

There are three types of commercial space ecosystems, the historic one, the self-created and the incidental.  The first one is exemplified by over 60 years of the United States space program, where government-funded missions gave life to private contractors that gained industrial expertise nowadays being used to supply end-to-end missions for public and private customers.

Thales Alenia Space signed a contract with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to conduct a feasibility study for the PRISMA Second Generation (PSG) hyperspectral Earth observation system, Thales Alenia said. It will be leading a consortium including Leonardo, Telespazio, e-Geos and Sitael. .

German real-time risk and disaster intelligence provider, Mayday.ai, and California-based computer perception company, Picogrid, formed a partnership for risk and environmental monitoring with mobile and AI-enabled sensors.  Mayday operates a platform that covers multiple disaster types and all geographic regions in real time.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Aerospace News Roundup 14 – 20 February 2022. Welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space Updates! I’m Jean Deville, joined as always by my co-host Blaine Curcio. 

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 Irmgard Marboe and Olavo Bittencourt Neto at the wonderful and cosy Café

The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and the University of Auckland joined up to conduct research on carbon fibre technology to be used for spacecraft as well as laser light data transmission, the University said. The projects are two of eight awarded a share of NZ $8 million by the Ministry of Business and Innovation.

NASA announced two opportunities to partner with the agency and help companies finalise the development of their technologies that could potentially be used for space exploration. NASA’s ongoing program, Tipping Point, supports space technologies that can advance commercial space capabilities and benefit future agency missions.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Emmanuelle David, the executive manager of EPFL Space Center and Dr Minoo Rathnasabapathy, research engineer at the Space Enabled Research Group at MIT's Media Lab, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. Rewarding safe and sustainable behaviour in space.

The global space launch services market in 2019 was valued at $9.5 billion and is projected to reach a market value of $47.6 billion by 2030, according to business intelligence company Visiongain. Last year Europe occupied 5th place in the global space launching ranking, with only 4 successful launches.