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This week’s Space Café WebTalk took place on 12 May 2020, featuring Vera Pinto, Policy Coordinator and Equality Coordinator at the European Commission Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS), in conversation with Torsten Kriening, co-publisher of SpaceWatch.Global and COO of ThorGroup GmbH.

We are extremely excited to announce that the window for our Launch Demo mission starts on Sunday, May 24th, and extends through Monday, May 25th, with an opportunity to launch from 10 A.M. – 2 P.M. Pacific (17:00 – 21:00 GMT) each day.

The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, announced the scheduled launch of its Mars Hope Probe in a 495,000,000km journey to reach and orbit the Red Planet.

U.S. Space Command took another step in expanding its international space data sharing network; this time with the nation of Peru on 20 May 2020.

SpaceChain Foundation announced on 19 May 2020 it has contracted and invested in Core Semiconductor, an innovator in provably secure computing platforms for all connected devices, to produce the world’s first open-source hardware platform capable of providing a downlink to mobile phones and small devices directly from satellites in orbit, without the use of a satellite dish on Earth or a third-party network.

After more than 10 years of design, fabrication and testing, the NISP (Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer) instrument was delivered to ESA on Tuesday 19 May to be installed inside the telescope of the European Euclid astrophysics mission.

We have much to gain by making the Moon humankind's next destination. We can practice living and working on another world, operate autonomous machines from great distances, and utilize the natural local resources.

Japan’s establishment of the Space Domain Mission Unit, which is planned to become fully operational in 2023, reflects the country’s increasing reliance on space systems to meet its security needs. It could emerge as a key actor in the defence of space assets in the Indo-Pacific.

A senior official from the Russian state space corporation, Roscosmos, has indicated that Russia is open to discussions with the United States regarding Russia’s role in the Artemis lunar programme – in particular the Lunar Gateway mission – within the framework of NASA’s proposed Artemis Accords.

The Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and Ministry of Defense (MoD) stood up the country’s first Space Operations Squadron – the first component of Japan’s Space Domain Mission Unit (SDMU) – in a ceremony presided by the Japanese Minister of Defense Taro Kono on 18 May 2020.