Space

In this Space Café Radio – TOP-10 MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN SPACE IN 2021, contributing editor Dr. Emma Gatti talks about her thoughts on the previous year. 2021 has been an intense year for the Space sector. From breakthrough scientific achievements to thorny diplomatic accidents, the industry seems almost to be not keeping pace with itself.

So what DID happen? How do we know what happened? Was it appropriate for China to invoke Article V of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty? What level of oversight should the US have with commercial space activities? What level of transparency is appropriate? These are just a few of the questions prompted by China's 3 December 2021 note verbale to the United Nations.

The recent note verbale on two encounters between the Chinese space station and Starlink satellites has triggered a broader discussion on Space Traffic Management. But what do we actually mean by Space Traffic Management and what do we actually need? For many (including me), Space Traffic Management has a short-term and a long-term dimension.

Start-up company, Klaus Space Transportation, announced it has successfully conducted a drop test of a newly developed Inflatable Atmospheric Decelerator (IAD) prototype this month. Founded just in October, Klaus’ aim is to make space transportation sustainable, available, and cost-efficient.

Firefly Aerospace paused preparations for its next Alpha rocket launch originally planned for early 2022, due to the U.S. government making its largest shareholder to divest its stake for national security reasons, SpaceNews reported. Noosphere Venture Partners will sell its interest in Firefly at the request of the Committee

In this Space Café Radio – our Review 2021 series, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Troy McCann, Entrepreneur, Space engineer, advisor, investor and founder and CEO of Moonshot Space in Sydney about his space highlights in 2021, what's up in Australia and what to watch out for the upcoming year in space.

Spanish satellite launcher, PLD Space, announced it has closed a Series B funding round of US $28M through the co-investment initiative of Innvierte program. The operation was led by Arcano Partners, Aciturri and the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI).

Russia launched its third successful demonstration flight of the Angara A5 rocket on Monday, however, its Persei upper stage suffered a failure, NASA Spaceflight reported. This was the final launch needed to enter operational status, although further tests might be needed prior to operations.

In this Space Café Radio – our Review 2021 series, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Dr Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra about military space in 2021 in Australia and globally and what to watch out for the upcoming year. 

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it needed two more months to complete the environmental review of SpaceX Starship orbital launches from the Boca Chica facility in Texas. The FAA was unable to meet the original deadline of 31st December due to the high volume of comments submitted.