Entrepreneurship

Amazon announced it signed launch service contracts with three commercial launch companies, ArianeSpace, Blue Origin and ULA (United Launch Alliance) for 83 launches altogether over a five year period.  Arianespace will perform 18 Ariane 6 launches for Amazon’s Project Kuiper over a period of three years under the contract.

Lockheed Martin has released an open-source, non-proprietary interface to help standardize on-orbit docking. The company published the Mission Augmentation Port (MAP) interface standard online to support industry approaches to on-orbit servicing and mission augmentation, Lockheed said.

Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) has signed a £22 million contract with Defence Equipment and Support on behalf of UK Space Command for a 150 kg satellite based on SSTL’s Carbonite+, SSTL said. The project is named TYCHE and it is the first satellite procurement for the MINERVA programme.

Polaris has secured a pre-series-A investment from the newly created Polaris Space Ventures (PSV) investment company, Polaris said. The investment enables the firm to increase the number of employees, as well as enlarge company facilities, and to prepare for rapid upscaling. 

SpaceX launched its Transporter-4 mission carrying 40 spacecraft, including CubeSats, microsats, picosats, non-deploying hosted payloads, and an orbital transfer vehicle to deploy spacecraft at a later time. The rideshare mission was the rocket booster’s seventh successful mission.

The Space Café WebTalk “33 minutes with Laura Anne Edwards - Thoughts on the Future of Space and Earth” took place on Tuesday, 29th March. Laura is an innovation catalyst, named a 2021 Top 50 Leader in Space Tech. Laura is a NASA Datanaut, a core member of the Oxford Space Initiative, TED Resident,

In that Space Café Germany Dr.-Ing. Ernst Pfeiffer, CEO of HPS High-Performance Space Structure Systems GmbH and spokesman of the German SME in Space Association, talked with our guest moderator Markus Mooslechner, Executive Producer and Author at Terra Mater Studios and Host of the Space Café Podcasts about SME's in the German Space(politics) - an orientation.

Euroconsult announced the launch of its latest summit, Asia Satellite Business Week (ASBW), gathering the global space and satellite industry’s key players in Asia for an opportunity to exchange views, share industry perspectives, and secure partnerships. The event will be co-organized with B2B information provider Informa Tech.

QuadSAT has worked alongside teams from the ESA’s ESOC mission control centre to complete a measurement campaign of large antennas at Kiruna Earth Station, QuadSAT said. This was the first time that a drone-based system, QuadSAT UAS, was used to measure a 15-metre antenna along with performing tracking tests with it.

Data and intelligence platform Privateer, announced the members of its Board of Advisors to be appointed effective immediately, supporting the growth and knowledge of Privateer and its offerings, the company said. Privateer’s Advisory Board members have expertise in strategy, technology, operations, public policy, and astroscience.