Entrepreneurship

Swissto12 and SatixFy cooperate to develop and sell telecom payloads for satellites in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and Geostationary Orbit (GEO), the companies said. SatixFy contributes its software defined, high bandwidth product portfolio; Swissto12 contributes its active antenna technology that leverages 3D printing.

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 30th episode in our podcast series The Space Cafe Podcast: Yvette Hopkins, Shetland Space Center. Episode 030 features a special guest Yvette Hopkins. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a little north of Scotland, there is a small island that you can cross by car in just two and a half hours.

The Swiss nanosatellite startup Astrocast seeks as much as €45.5 million in a private placement ahead of a direct listing on the stock market, Bloomberg reported. The company is backed by venture capital firm Adit Ventures, Airbus SE’s venture arm and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The space transportation and logistics company D-Orbit will launch and deploy a cubesat from Aistech Space on its ION satellite carrier, the startup based in Italy said. The 6U CubeSat nanosatellite, named Guardian, will carry a multispectral telescope designed by Aistech Space, D-Orbit said.

During this week’s Space Café, SpaceWatch.Global publisher, Torsten Kriening caught up with California-based Danica Remy to discuss all things asteroids. With a career in social justice movements and “fabulous innovation”, Danica serves as President of the B612 Foundation, which leads private sector efforts in research, analysis and systems design to protect Earth from asteroids.

Paris, 23 June 2021. – Airbus Defence and Space will equip its four CO3D Earth observation satellites with S-band antennas from Anywave, the company announced. Airbus Defence and Space was selected by the French Space Agency (CNES) in July 2019 to develop the Constellation Optique 3D (CO3D) Earth observation program.

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.