Region

Online retail and cloud computing giant Amazon is likely joining the satellite communications mega-constellation competition according to filings made at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on its behalf by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), GeekWire.com reports.

Engineers designing ESA’s Hera planetary defence mission to the Didymos asteroid pair are developing advanced technology to let the spacecraft steer itself through space, taking a similar approach to self-driving cars.

With a successful Soyuz launch that completed the first phase of SES’ O3b constellation, Arianespace today reaffirmed is ability to support the growing global market for such in-orbit satellite systems.

The Beresheet lunar lander built and operated by Israeli not-for-profit company SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 22 February 2019, has successfully arrived in Lunar orbit.

On March 27, India announced it had successfully conducted an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test, called “Mission Shakti”. After the United States, Russia and China, India is now the fourth country in the world to have demonstrated this capability.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has set up a dedicated unit to work on the standardised nanosatellites called 'CubeSats', teaming up with European companies to develop low-cost technology-testing missions.

Eutelsat Communications is set to become a partner of Seraphim Space Camp, the UK's first accelerator for space technology start-ups.

Tunisia's Telnet Group and Russian commercial launch provider GK Launch Services signed a contract on 1 April 2019 for the launch of the Challenge One satellite on board a Russian Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle integrated with the Fregat upper stage in 2020.

NASA Administrator, Jim Bridenstine, has expressed his concern in the days after India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully carried out the country’s first anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon test against an out-of-service Indian satellite orbiting the Earth at 300 kilometres altitude on Wednesday, 27 March 2019, at 11.16 am Indian Time

Swiss New Space company Astrocast had its second satellite launched and deployed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (Mission PSLV-C45) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on 1 April 2019.