Space

It’s often said that “people have short memories’ when speaking about the economy. It means that somehow, we seem unable to keep a cool head when stock markets are rallying, and the economy is in a bull run. When money seems to be thrown at everything that moves, the fear of missing out (FOMO) keeps people from asking tough questions and sometimes seems to destroy common sense all together.

In 2020, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) in collaboration with European Space Agency (ESA) have initiated a partnership through a series of space-themed “Patent insight reports”. These publicly available studies analyse global patent filing data to identify major trends and developments in specific sub-domains of the space sector.

Russia’s newest docking port, the Prichal module will arrive at the ISS today to provide five additional docking ports and fuel transfer capability to the space lab. Prichal is controlled by the Progress vehicle and will automatically dock to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module.

Isar Aerospace has joined the RIT 2021 space development program with plans to expand its operations in the Kiruna space cluster in northern Sweden, RIT Space reported. RIT 2021 is an EU-funded collaborative project aiming to create sustainable growth in the region of Norrbotten, enhancing its role as Sweden’s space industry.

The in-orbit servicer Astroscale raised another $109 million from different investors, bringing the total capital raised to date to $300 million, the Japanese space company said. The Series F round was the “largest funding round in the company’s history”, as Astroscale says.

Near-earth space is a finite resource lacking in holistic management and traffic coordination, becoming increasingly congested with objects, dead and alive, that threaten the safety of satellites that do things we all care about and need, as well as crewed space missions. These space-based services include, inter alia, position, navigation, timing, financial transactions, ...

During this week’s Space Café, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening caught up with the Director of European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC)  and Director for International Affairs & SpaceResources.lu at the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA) Dr. Mathias Link.

Nanoracks Europe announced preparations to deploy FEES2, the first-ever 0.3U CubeSat from the ISS. The trackable satellite, the thickness of a cherry, was developed by GP Advanced Projects (GPAP). Production and space projects management company GPAP called the mission a “major milestone towards building the first Italian nanosatellite constellation for IoT.”

Saber Astronautics wants to bring Australians to the International Space Station (ISS) to do scientific research. The space mission operator said it has signed a deal with private spaceflight leader Axiom Space to bring Australians and Australian industry to the station’s orbiting microgravity laboratory and work on a new generation of space-developed products.

ESA and French space agency, CNES, are exploring the possibility to create a European Space Transportation Hub, ESA said. The Hub is planned to be located in the Paris region. It would bring the main European actors in space transportation together in the same location.