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SES ordered two large geostationary (GEO) Ku-band satellites for TV distribution over Europe from Thales Alenia Space, the company said. The two satellites, Astra 1P and Astra 1Q, will replace two current Astra satellites at SES’s prime orbital neighborhood of 19.2 degrees East, which serves 118 million TV households across Europe, SES said.

Thumbs up: Astra Space launched its 13.1 meter rocket LV0007 with a test payload from the U.S. Space Force from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska successfully into orbit on Saturday. LV0007 was Astra´s fourth attempt to reach its 500 kilometers low Earth orbit (LEO), after it failed in December 2020 and in August 2021.

NASA selected Intuitive Machines for scientific Moon missions and will pay the Houston-based company $77.5 million, the agency said. The agency picked Intuitive Machines to deliver Moon research, science investigations and a technology demonstration in 2024, NASA said. The commercial delivery is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CPLS) initiative and the Artemis program.

The propulsion systems supplier Morpheus Space and the launch service provider Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) want to cooperate in the field of future propulsion technologies, the companies said. RFA intends to integrate Morpheus propulsion systems into the orbital stage of its RFA One launch vehicle system to improve its overall performance and sustainability, the Augsburg-based company said.

EU member states and the European Commission cut the budget of the Horizon Europe space research partnership, aimed to drive EU competitiveness in the global market, Science Business reported. Industry partners will have to decide now if it is worth going ahead with the project or not.

SpaceX can have Starship’s first orbital flight as early as January, pending regulatory approvals, CEO Elon Musk said at a joint meeting of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board and Board on Physics and Astronomy.  According to Musk, the company is in the final preparations of both the vehicle and their new launch site in Boca Chica, Texas.

During this week’s live Space Café hosted in Bremen, Northern Germany, SpaceWatch.Global Publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Professor Pascale Ehrenfreund, the President of both the International Space University and the International Astronautical Federation and Research Professor of Space Policy and International Affairs at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute.

ICEYE announced having signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on developing advanced SAR products. The collaboration builds on G42’s recent agreement with Yahsat to develop a geospatial data fusion of different sensor modalities. Finnish Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite and analytics provider, ICEYE

Orbit Fab and Dawn Aerospace announced a collaboration to make on-orbit refuelling available to satellites utilising green propellants such as nitrous oxide and propylene. The collaboration was announced at Space Tech Expo Europe in Bremen. The “Gas Stations in Space” company Orbit Fab offers refuelling services in space and developed a port known as RAFTI.

New Space company Leanspace, announced its launch out of stealth mode with several customers and a new product, Leanspace Cloud. The Seraphim Space backed start-up, has already raised over €2M in seed funding from institutional and angel investors. As a first offering, the company offers Leanspace Cloud, to be launched at Space Tech Expo Europe.