Russia&CIS

Following a string of high-profile incidents, failures, and corruption scandals and allegations, Russia's state space corporation, Roscosmos, has hit back at its Russian and international critics in a bizarre claim that criticism of the struggling space programme is an "information attack" designed to discredit Roscosmos and its efforts at reforming Russia's moribund space sector.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. (Firefly), a provider of economical, and dependable launch vehicles, spacecraft and in-space services, have announced that they have been selected by NASA for the award of a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract.

The Russian military successfully launched three Strela-3M communications satellites on 30 November 2018 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northwest Russia, according to reports from TASS, the Russian state news agency.

Azerbaijan and Australia are reportedly in ongoing discussions regarding collaborative satellite projects, according to a report from Trend News Agency, an Azerbaijani news outlet.

The Russian state space corporation, Roscosmos, has announced its intention to build a constellation of satellites called Marathon to serve the expanding Internet of Things (IoT) market, as part of its Sphere satellite system.

MIURA-1, the suborbital rocket developed by PLD Space, will be launched from "El Arenosillo" Experimentation Center (CEDEA), of the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), Spain's national space agency, during the third quarter of 2019. This technological demonstrator, whose development began in 2011, is designed to provide scientific and commercial access to space from Spain.

The Saint-Petersburg-based lab Astronomikon has grown out of a student nanosatellite project. We talked about the lab’s work on the commercial level.

Uzbekistan is discussing the joint development, manufacture, and operation of a communications satellite with Russia and Kazakhstan, according to media reports in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Russian scientists, with the support of the Russian government, intend to place a number of ground-based observatories in the Nenets Autonomous Region on Russia's Northwest Arctic Ocean coast for the purposes of providing space situational awareness (SSA) of satellites and space debris in Polar orbits as the pass over the Arctic region, according to a report published on 7 November 2018 by the Russian news agency, TASS.

Two Kazakh satellites are due to be launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 satellite launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 19 November 2018, marking further milestone’s for Kazakhstan’s independent space capabilities.