Region

Hughes Network Systems, LLC , the global leader in broadband satellite networks and services, announced on 27 May 2020 that Cignal TV Inc., the Philippines premier direct-to-home (DTH) satellite provider, has selected the Hughes JUPITER™ System to enable satellite broadband service to its two million subscribers.

Singapore Space and Technology Limited (SSTL) announced on 27 May 2020 its collaboration with the World Bank Group for the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Challenge.

The U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) Geosynchronous Earth Orbiting (GEO) satellite program, commonly referred to as NGG, completed its preliminary design reviews (PDR) for its two candidate mission payloads on 21 May 2020.

SES, the leader in global content connectivity solutions, elected on 26 May 2020 to clear a portion of the C-band spectrum in the United States in accordance with the accelerated timeline detailed in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Order published in the Federal Register on 23 April 2020.

OneWeb, the global communications company with a mission to connect governments, businesses and people everywhere, submitted a modification request to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to increase the number of satellites in its constellation up to 48,000 satellites. This larger OneWeb constellation will allow for greater flexibility to meet soaring global connectivity demands.

As mentioned in Part One of this article, international space law is a modest, open regime, subject to expansion and clarification. At the international multilateral level, various UN treaties on space done after the Outer Space Treaty expand on various articles of that treaty.

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on 26 May 2020 that it has signed a contract with Airbus for the construction of the third European Service Module (ESM) for Orion, the American crewed spacecraft. The contract is worth around €250 million.

There are an estimated 900,000 pieces of space debris larger than 1 cm orbiting the Earth, with only a small proportion of them tracked.

Stanford University scholars Marshall Burke, David Lobell and Stefano Ermon have spent the past five years leading a team of researchers to home in on an efficient way to find and track impoverished zones across Africa.

The Universities Space Research Association (USRA) announced on 19 May 2020 the selection of  Dr. Miguel Román, Director of The Earth from Space Institute (EfSI) and his research team as recipients of a grant from NASA's Earth Sciences Division.