Space

The LEO operator OneWeb received a $500 million injection from its large shareholder Bharti, totalling its secured funding to $2.4 billion, the company said. Bharti exercised a call option under the existing shareholders’ agreement to invest an additional $500 million, and will then hold 38.6% of the company, it said.

On the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts have increasingly relied on the support of CIMON, the astronaut robotic assistant, which was developed and built by Airbus for the German Aerospace Center Space Administration (DLR). The system, which has recently been updated with CIMON-2,

Leaf Space, a ground segment service provider, is adding three stations to its global Leaf Line Network, the company based in Washington, D.C., said. The new stations will be installed in Sri Lanka, the Azores and Scotland, the company said, "enhancing Leaf Space’s capability to provide solutions and services to its growing list of customers".

The smallsat manufacturer LeoStella delivered its first satellite to Loft Orbital Solutions, a payload service company, for a rideshare launch on Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, the company said. LeoStella delivered the “Yet Another Mission-3” (YAM-3) satellite, the company said.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Aerospace News Roundup 21 June – 27 June”. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! A special shout-out to our friends at SpaceWatch.Global

Earlier this week, we saw a couple of significant space industry-related events in Hong Kong, namely talks by a variety of leaders from CASC, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and others. The events took place at the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and covered topics as diverse as the Tianwen-1 Mars mission, the BeiDou satellite navigation,...

Strategic space marketing firm AstroAgency has been nominated for two awards from the British Interplanetary Society (BIS). The company’s virtual fortnightly networking event, SpaceBar, has been nominated for the Sir Arthur Clarke Education and Outreach Team Achievement Award, which recognises teams that have fostered informative, educational and inspiring online engagement

Paris, 28 June 2021. – Virgin Galactic obtained a license from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow it to fly customers to space, the company said. The FAA expanded Virgin Galactic’s license as a commercial space transportation operator to allow it to carry people – or ”space flight participants”, as it said. 

Paris, 28 June 2021. – NASA proceeds to repair the computer on board the Hubble Space Telescope, the U.S. agency said, but was not able, so far, the reboot the backup computer. NASA is continuing to diagnose a problem with the payload computer on the Hubble Space Telescope, the agency said, after completing another set of tests on June 23 and 24. 

by Molly Silk,  PhD Candidate, Chinese Space Policy, University of Manchester SpaceWatch.Global has been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. This is “China is using mythology and sci-fi to sell its space programme to the world”, originally published 25 June 2021 at The Conversation by Molly Silk.