Space

Paris, 22 April 2021. – Another breakthrough: NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance was able to extract oxygen from the Red Planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, the U.S. space agency said. “While the technology demonstration is just getting started, it could pave the way for science fiction to become science fact – isolating and storing oxygen on Mars”, NASA said.

Paris, 22 April 2021. – SpaceX and NASA are targeting tomorrow, Friday, 23 April, for the Crew-2 launch to the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX said. Falcon 9’s launch of Dragon’s second six-month operational crew mission to the ISS is scheduled for Friday, with a back-up opportunity on Monday, SpaceX said.

Paris, 22 April 2021. – Virgin Orbit will launch a series of six hyperspectral LEO satellites for the defense and security company QinetiQ and the geospatial analytics company HyperSat, Virgin Orbit said. Virgin Orbit will provide launch services for each satellite via its LauncherOne system. The first satellite will launch no earlier than 2023.

Paris, 22 April 2021. – Moon missions will generate more than $42 billion of revenue for the international space sector, NSR newest Moon Markets Analysis report found. The report forecasts 140 Moon Missions launching over the next decade to generate $42.3 billion, NSR said. Major growth areas include orbital and surface infrastructure building.

Space and satellite technologies are evolving faster than we can grasp their myriad of applications and range of uses.  The industry is certainly encouraging start-up services from all corners of the world to leverage these assets in increasingly beneficial and efficient ways.  Japan hails one of the fastest-growing space technology startups,

Paris, 21 April 2021. – European space experts call for a better control of space debris and regulation of space traffic, the Financial Times (FT) reports. The launch of thousands of new satellites in ‘mega-constellations’ to improve global internet access will exacerbate the growing problem of space debris, the FT quoted experts from a conference of the European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday.

Paris, 21 April 2021. – The Austrian new space investor Findus Venture works with the startup Spire Global to “tackle the growing problem of space debris”, the companies announced. They signed a second partnership agreement to launch the ADLER-2 satellite that aims to “further enhance orbital debris monitoring in low earth orbit, and expand novel atmospheric sensing capabilities".

Paris, 21 April 2021. – The European Space Agency (ESA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) cooperate “to better address major global issues such as food security, and to take further advantage of the digital transformation in agriculture”, ESA 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 12 April - 18 April 2021”.

A European-wide survey aimed at identifying user needs and use cases for future EU GOVSATCOM services will be carried out by EU Member States and EU agencies within the ENTRUSTED project. The survey is addressed to governmental and institutional users managing security-critical missions, operations and infrastructures. Information will be collected between April and June.