Space

NASA’s Expedition 68 Flight Engineers Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio installed a Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to augment power generation on the station’s port truss structure, NASA said. The extravehicular activity (EVA) lasted 7 hours and 8 minutes.

Following consent from Transport Secretary Mark Harper, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has issued the final remaining licences to Virgin Orbit ahead of its planned launch from the UK, the UK Government stated. The CAA granted the licences within 15 months.

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to provide launch services for the Sentinel-6B mission. Sentinel-6B will continue the long-term global sea level data record begun in 1992 by Topex/Poseidon, followed by Jason 1, 2, 3, and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich. The mission is a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

NASA has announced the end of life of its InSight mission after more than four years of collecting unique science on Mars. NASA reached this conclusion after mission controllers at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California could not contact the lander after two consecutive attempts. As a result, they concluded the spacecraft's solar-powered batteries had run out of energy – a state engineers refer to as "dead bus."

The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected OKAPI:Orbits to assess the provision of potential future external conjunction assessment support services to ESA. The selection is under a pilot scheme testing and complementing ESA's existing and established collision avoidance processes. ESA currently uses the collision avoidance processes for its SWARM mission.

Long-term orbital sustainability provider, Astroscale Israel, a subsidiary of Astroscale US, has implemented changes in its executive leadership, naming Ofir Azriel the new Managing Director of the company.

On December 19, the Outer Space Institute published an International Open Letter on Reducing Risks from Uncontrolled Reentries of Rocket Bodies. The letter was signed by nearly 200 leading experts, including former astronauts, foreign ministers, heads of space agencies, a Nobel Prize winner, and a recently retired Chief Scientist of NASA.

UK-based software defined ground segment solution provider, Clutch Space, has signed a letter of intent with Luxembourg-based space-powered Radio Frequency Reconnaissance company, Kleos Space, to participate in the demonstration and evaluation of the AnyTime micro ground station network.

The Outer Space Institute (OSI) has published the International Open Letter on Reducing Risks from Uncontrolled Reentries of Rocket Bodies, the third international open letter that the OSI has developed and released. The Open Letter calls on governments to negotiate a multilateral agreement requiring controlled reentries and, in the meantime, demonstrate leadership by immediately and unilaterally committing to national controlled reentry regimes.

Approximately 2 minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff an anomaly occurred on the rocket’s Zefiro 40 second stage, thus ending Arianespace’s Vega C mission, the company said. Data analyses are currently in progress to determine the reasons of the launch failure.