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Can regulation match innovation in a space race? 3 experts discuss  - The space race never ended. In fact, it just got a whole lot faster - Space engineering has always been a fundamentally future thinking activity, but in recent years mass investment in the industry coupled with technological development has been like a shot in the arm.

Since the early years of the last decade, the new space industry boomed, utilizing the rideshare (or hitchhiking - no towel needed) opportunities to reach orbit on almost all major launch vehicles. Dnepr, Soyuz, Vega, Long March, Electron, Falcon-9, LauncherOne, and many more all offer opportunities for small satellites. In fact, the industry is so thriving that two niche industries followed.

Paris, 19 April 2021. – China intends to expand its destructive anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon arsenal to target U.S. satellites, the annual report of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) concluded.„China has already fielded ground-based ASAT missiles intended to destroy satellites in LEO and ground-based ASAT lasers probably intended to blind or damage sensitive space-based optical sensors on LEO satellites,” the unclassified report published last week found.

Paris, 19 April 2021. – U.S. president Joe Biden names former NASA astronaut Pam Melroy to serve as the agency’s deputy administrator, alongside Bill Nelson who was named 14th NASA administrator in March. “Pam’s experience as an astronaut, space shuttle commander, and U.S. Air Force test pilot would bring to NASA a unique perspective on the opportunities and challenges facing the agency,” acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk commented.

Paris, 19 April 2021. – The mobile satellite communications provider Inmarsat partners with OneOcean, a compliance and navigation service provider, to drive the “digitalisation of navigation and compliance in the maritime industry”, the companies announced. Under the agreement, OneOcean leverages Inmarsat’s technology platform to apply its software solutions and “transform the way voyage planning software is deployed, updated and integrated between ship and shore”.

Paris, 19 April 2021. – It’s a big deal: NASA has selected SpaceX's Starship to land two American astronauts on the Moon. The firm-fixed price, milestone-based contract total award value is $2.89 billion, NASA said. The U.S. space agency picked SpaceX over Blue Origin to develop its first commercial human lander that will carry the next two American astronauts to the lunar surface as part of its Artemis program, NASA said.

This Space Café Canada will feature Dr. David Kendall, Founding Member at Outer Space Institute, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in conversation with Dr. Jessica West, Senior Researcher at Project Ploughshares and a friend of SpaceWatch.Global. Does space need more Canada? Canada has a strong past in space, but what is the future?

Join SpaceWatch.Global for an interesting and informative Space Café WebTalk featuring Temidayo Oniosun, Managing Director, Space in Africa, Lagos, Nigeria. A month ago a report on "Global Space Budgets - A Country-level Analysis" was released. This report examines the space budgets of 106 governments and analyses how they have changed between 2018 and 2020.

by Annie Handmer and Steven Freeland SpaceWatch.Global has been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. This is “It’s not how big your laser is, it’s how you use it: space law is an important part of the fight against space debris”, originally published 14 April 2021 at The Conversation by Annie Handmer and Steven Freeland.

Paris, 16 April 2021. – The Earth monitoring and analytics startup HawkEye 360 secured $55 million in additional funding, bringing the total amount raised so far to over $155 million, the company said. The new (Series C) round was led by NightDragon and included further investment from existing investors Advance, Razor's Edge Ventures, Shield Capital, Dorilton Ventures, Adage Capital, and Esri International, the firm said.