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The first European external commercial facility on the International Space Station arrived at its new home last week: the Columbus laboratory module.

The UAE Space Agency, in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi-based global innovation hub Krypto Labs, announced on 9 April 2020 that it would be kicking off its virtual programmes as part of the Global Space Industry Accelerator (GSIA) initiative.

In the five decades since we first started sending spacecraft to Mars, exploration of the red planet has had a poor record of success. It is only in the last few years that we have come to expect that the number of successes greatly outweighs the failures.

Thuraya, the mobile satellite services subsidiary of the UAE-based global satellite company, Yahsat, announced on 9 April 2020 that Thuraya MarineStar, its best in class, affordable maritime voice solution with advanced two-way tracking and monitoring capabilities is a bestseller, especially in the Asian maritime markets.

The rapidly growing new space startup Rhea Space Activity (RSA), headquartered in Washington DC and with operations in Colorado Springs, has been tapped by the United States Air Force (USAF) to develop a wholly new field of intelligence to surveil "cislunar" space - that is, the volume of space between the Earth and the Moon.

NASA and Masten Space Systems announced on 8 April 2020 that the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Project Office has selected Masten to deliver a suite of NASA-sponsored scientific instruments to the lunar surface by December 2022

CryoSat-2, the European Space Agency´s ice and snow satellite, was launched from the Baikonour Cosmodrone into orbit on 8 April 2010. Originally designed for a three and a half year mission, CryoSat-2 has been operating since 2010, far exceeding its nominal mission lifetime

Rocket Lab, a space systems company and the global leader in dedicated small satellite launch, has successfully completed a mid-air recovery test – a maneuver that involves snagging an Electron test stage from the sky with a helicopter.

Modern software development for spacecraft is very conservative and limited to a small set of experts in the industry. This is due to various existing constraints on space hardware and to the typical criticality of space missions.But the landscape is changing, particularly where CubeSats are concerned. These small satellites have become very popular in recent years, causing space components to become smaller and cheaper, and therefore making them accessible to a wider number of organizations.

This Space Café WebTalk happened on 7 April 2020, featuring Raphael Roettgen, Managing Director and Founder of E2MC, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, co-publisher of SpaceWatch.Global and COO of ThorGroup GmbH.