Entrepreneurship

Paris, 23 June 2021. – Just two seconds: Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) successfully tested its full-scale staged combustion engine, the company said. The test was carried out in Kiruna (Sweden). Staged combustion technology is characterized by higher efficiencies and performances compared to traditional rocket engine designs, the company explained.

The European Union (EU) will invest nearly €9 billion in European space programs over the period of 2021 to 2027, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. EU and ESA signed a new Financial Framework Partnership Agreement (FFPA), “for ESA and European industry to design new-generation systems and programmes, crucial for the economy and a green and digital Europe”, ESA said.

During the second Space Café Canada event, host Jessica West of Project Ploughshares sat down with Tim Kopra, Vice-President of Robotics and Space Operations at MDA, to talk about the role of robotics in Canada’s space program and in the future of space exploration.

Europe cannot afford to stay out of human spaceflight if it wants to rank as a global political and economic power, the head of the European Space Agency (ESA) said. “It’s not possible that a political and economic power like Europe cannot fly its own astronauts to space,” Josef Aschbacher, Director General of ESA, said at the Paris Air Forum at Le Bourget yesterday.

Isar Aerospace: the Bavarian SpaceX? In this edition of Space Café Germany, we talk to Daniel Metzler, one of the founders and managing directors of Isar Aerospace. Isar Aerospace is considered the German NewSpace startup of the moment. The young company from Munich is building the two-stage Spectrum, a launch vehicle capable of carrying up to one ton of payload into low-Earth orbit.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Prof. Dr.-Ing. Enrico Stoll, Chair of Space Technology at the Technical University (TU) Berlin, Germany, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. 30 Years of Small Satellite Development at TU Berlin

Rocket Lab has been awarded by the University of California Berkeley to design two Photon spacecraft named Blue and Gold for a scientific ESCAPADE mission to Mars, the launch company said. ESCAPADE is a mission that will orbit two spacecraft around Mars to understand the structure, composition, variability, and dynamics of Mars' unique hybrid magnetosphere, Rocket Lab said.

Interstellar Lab, the French-American company building controlled-environment habitat and crop cultivation modules, has established a partnership with the 3D printing company Soliquid. Founded in 2018 by Jim Rhoné, Impulse Group and Amaury Thomas, Soliquid is backed by Leonard, VINCI’s future of construction acceleration program,

China’s commercial space sector has rightly received significant attention over the past 6-7 years, as more than 100 commercial space companies have been established with big plans to do things as diverse as rocket manufacturing, satellite IoT services, or indeed, earth observation

In a groundbreaking initiative organised by the Scottish Space Leadership Council (SSLC), global space sector stakeholders have been joining forces to explore solutions to sustainability-focused challenges set by environmental groups, academia, businesses and the wider public.