Entrepreneurship

Arianespace has launched another Ariane 5 from ArianeGroup with two giant satellites on board and broke the record of the largest total mass injected with a single flight into the geostationary transfer orbit. For its 111th launch, flight number VA255 from Kourou, French Guiana, Ariane 5 executed the “highest performing flight by any launcher to geostationary transfer orbit”.

In this Space Café Radio – on tour on Mars (3), SpaceWatch.Global contributing editor Emma Gatti spoke in this third episode of our AMADEE-20 coverage with Alon Shikar, Vice President Research & Development at D-Mars. They talked about the new home on Mars, the evolution of the habitat and upcoming challenges.

Boost your company and enter new markets! Space4Impact is looking for startups and scale-ups offering satellite data analytics and services for versatile applications on Earth. The Space2Earth Accelerator is an international acceleration programme for downstream space applications supported by the Canton of Vaud. The programme runs from January to June 2022 and features three in-person events

Imagine if in all of human history no one had yet explored the oceans. Imagine if our first proverbial “toe in the water” was a mere 70 years ago but we had the technology of today with which to explore and exploit it. That’s very much the situation for space – the whole planet is converging on space at the same time. Let that sink in.

Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin want to develop the “first-ever free-flying commercial space station”, Starlab, the companies said. The space station will be a continuously crewed commercial platform, dedicated to conducting critical research, fostering industrial activity, and ensuring continued U.S. presence and leadership in low-Earth orbit (LEO), the partners said.

This Space Café Scotland will feature movers and shakers from the Scottish Space Ecosystem in conversation with Angela Mathis, CEO of ThinkTank Maths and a friend of SpaceWatch.Global. Scotland’s vision for New and Sustainable Space. Angela Mathis will explore the new Scottish Space Strategy with Craig Clark, the newly elected Chairperson of Scotland Space / Scottish Space Leadership Council.

The Scottish Space Strategy to achieve a £4 billion share of the global space market for the Scottish economy, was launched at Expo 2020 Dubai yesterday. The Strategy aims to make Scotland an end-to-end space system provider.  Scotland’s space sector is currently specialised in satellite and rocket manufacturing, launch facilities and research and data analysis.

In this Space Café Radio – on tour on Mars (1), SpaceWatch.Global contributing editor Emma Gatti spoke in this first episode of our AMADEE-20 coverage with Olivia Haider, Board Member of OeWF (Austrian Space Forum) and member of the Mission Support team about the mission, the setup and the goals.

On Monday, UBS analyst Myles Walton downgraded Virgin Galactic (ticker: SPCE) from Hold to Sell as the company is delaying commercial space flights. The news disappointed investors who had expected revenue-generating, commercial operations to start early next year. Last week Virgin said they would reorganise their development and test flight schedule.

Venture capital is an important source of financing for space firms. Every week, headlines trumpet how it is funding the proliferation of exciting space businesses. VC arguably epitomizes a key difference between the “new” and “old” space industries. It is a high-risk, high-reward approach to financing that aligns with newer firms’ entrepreneurial spirit.