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Orbex Wins UKSA Funding under ESA Boost Initiative

Orbex

UK-based orbital launch services company, Orbex, has won £3.3 million in funding from the UK Space Agency as part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) “Boost!” initiative. The initiative, which is part of ESA’s Commercial Space Transportation Services and Support programme, aims to further the development of world-leading space launch technologies.

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True Anomaly Raises $100 Million in Series B Funding 

True Anomaly GravityWorks Factory. Credit True Anomaly

True Anomaly, an aerospace company based in Colorado, announced on the 12th of December that it has closed a $100 million Series B equity raise. The round was led by Riot Ventures with participation from Eclipse, ACME Capital, Menlo Ventures, Narya, 645 Ventures, Rocketship.vc, Champion Hill Ventures, and FiveNine Ventures. True Anomaly was founded in 2022 to build solutions that address space domain awareness, security, and readiness challenges.

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Space Café Israel by Meidad Pariente: Ella Barak – The “new” Dual use of space technologies in other industries

In the second episode of season 2 of Space Café Israel, Meidad Pariente is in conversation with Ella Barak, the Director of the ASTRA accelerator at Starburst Aerospace.  Could you reveal a personal aspect that hasn't been included in your LinkedIn profile, giving us a peek into a lesser-known facet of your life? I'm a proud mother of three young boys, and they are my primary motivation behind many of my personal and professional decisions. They are my guiding stars in many daily decisions and during my career path.

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AI-powered analysis reveals economic landscape

Sentinel-2. Credit ESA

Researchers are using a human-machine collaborative approach to assess areas of poverty in underdeveloped nations. Providing an accurate assessment of poverty is a global challenge with 53 countries not conducting agricultural surveys in the past 15 years, and 17 countries not publishing a population census. To fill the data gap new technologies are being used to estimate poverty using alternative sources including street views, aerial photos, and satellite images. 

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Spire Global Wins EUMETSAT Satellite Weather Data Contract

Spire data company satellite. Credit Spire Global

Spire Global, Inc. has received a multi-million euro contract from EUMETSAT, Europe’s meteorological satellite agency, to provide radio occultation (RO) data. The contract is for an initial period of two years, from 2024-2026, with three optional, one-year extensions. The award follows a successful pilot program, which demonstrated the benefits of Spire’s RO data for weather forecasting accuracy and value. The Company’s RO data provides information about the vertical profiles of pressure, humidity and temperature across all points of the globe, including in the most remote regions and open oceans.

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Helicity Space Raises Seed Round for Fusion Propulsion Engines

Helicity Space, a commercial space company developing in-space propulsion and power technology based on fusion power, has raised $5 million in seed round funding from several new investors. The successful raise enables Helicity Space to advance its proprietary technology, the Helicity Drive, which consists of scalable fusion propulsion engines that should enable safer, faster, reusable, and more fuel-efficient travel into deep space.

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ispace and Orbit Fab Partner for Future Lunar Missions

Ispace-Orbit Fab partnership

ispace, inc. and Orbit Fab, Inc have announced an agreement to collaborate on in-space propellant harvesting and delivery for future missions to the Moon. The partnership will leverage each company’s unique and complementary capabilities to develop effective propellants and fuels from resources in space, such as water, ice, and lunar regolith or fine and rocky soils found on the surface of the Moon.

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Lunasonde to Launch Satellite for Subsurface Imaging

Lunasonde

Lunasonde has announced the launch timeline for its third satellite to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The San Xavier satellite will fly on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Transporter-11 in the summer of 2024 via launch provider Exolaunch. It is the company’s first on-orbit test of its proprietary very low-frequency radar technological stack capable of detecting subsurface mineral deposits up to two kilometers underground.

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