South America

The Republic of Colombia signed the Artemis Accords at NASA Headquarters where Vice President and Foreign Minister Marta Lucía Ramírez signed the agreement on behalf of the country. The countries also celebrate the 200th anniversary of the US–Colombia diplomatic relations.

There are three types of commercial space ecosystems, the historic one, the self-created and the incidental.  The first one is exemplified by over 60 years of the United States space program, where government-funded missions gave life to private contractors that gained industrial expertise nowadays being used to supply end-to-end missions for public and private customers.

The Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) signed a Statement of Strategic Intent and Cooperation to support innovation and the continued growth of the country’s space industry, AWS announced. The agreement outlines three specific areas of collaboration including research and development and an open, centralised space database.

In this week’s Space Café Brazil by Ian Grosner, he talked with Raphael Roettgen about the space economy sector. Raphael said the role of educating the people about the benefits of space is crucial. The language must be less technical and more didactic to understand the importance of space activities.

This Space Café Brazil will feature Raphael Roettgen, managing partner of E2MC Ventures, in conversation with Ian Grosner, Correspondent of SpaceWatch.Global for Brazil. A conversation on space business. Raphael Roettgen is the managing partner of E2MC Ventures, a space-focused earlystage venture capital firm.

The sub-meter resolution satellite imagery collection company Satellogic announced it has completed its business combination with CF Acquisition Corp. V, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald. Satellogic’s Class A ordinary shares and warrants trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbols “SATL” and “SATLW,” respectively.

Satellogic announced that private equity firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, led by former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, is investing US $150M into Earth imaging company Satellogic. The funding will help to close a delayed merger with CF Acquisition Corp. V., a special purpose acquisition corporation for the company to go public.

SpaceX is to launch the Transporter-3 rideshare mission later today, with Brazilian newspace startup, Pion Labs’ PION-BR1 satellite on board, Pion announced. The launch will make history in the Brazilian space sector. PION-BR1 is a 1P pocketqube satellite measuring only 5x5x5 cm, the smallest Brazilian satellite developed to date.

Satellogic, a vertically integrated geospatial company specialising in sub-meter resolution satellite imagery collection, announced it will be constructing a high-throughput satellite manufacturing facility in the Netherlands. The new facility in Berkel en Rodenrijs is expected to accelerate satellite manufacturing.

Ariane 5 has launched the giant James Webb Telescope into its transfer orbit. The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on Christmas day, and the telescope separated successfully at an altitude of close to 1500 kilometers 27 minutes into the flight.