Space

“The first ever lunar communications & navigation service”: Europe pushes ahead with its plan to place communication and navigation satellites around the Moon. Under its Moonlight initiative, the European Space Agency (ESA) supports two consortia of European companies which embark on the design of telecommunications and navigation services for Moon missions.

Paris, 19 May 2021. – York Space Systems wants to open a new “mega” manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Denver, to meet the growing demand from government and commercial customers, the company said. York's Manufacturing Technology Center will be the hub of the company's next phase to expand its production capacity by four times, the space mission solution provider said.

The European space start-up Pangea Aerospace said it raised €3 million to develop and test its low-cost, 3D printed and reusable aerospike rocket engine. The company founded in 2018 and based in Barcelona announced the completion of its Series Seed round of €3 million, bringing the total funding to more than €6 million, including public financing.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and The Strategist, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles. This is “SpaceX’s reusable rocket technology will have implications for Australia” by Malcolm Davis, originally published on 18 May 2021.

Lighter, less expensive and reusable: the European Space Agency (ESA) signed two contracts with ArianeGroup to develop the reusable low-cost Prometheus engine and the lighter Ariane 6 upper stage called Phoebus. The contracts have a value of €135 million and €14.6 million respectively.

NASA invests more than $100 million in more than 100 American small high-tech businesses to “help them move their innovations to market”, the U.S. space agency said. Under its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, NASA grants 140 new awards to 127 small businesses located across 34 states and Washington, D.C., the agency said. The investment totals $105 million.

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 10 May - 16 May 2021”. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup!

$15.5 billion is the total initial valuation of nine space companies that went or are planning to go public via SPACs: Virgin Galactic, Momentus, AST & Science, Astra, BlackSky, Velo3D, Redwire, Rocket Lab, and Spire. Silvio Marenco, a former CEO of two SPACs (Glenalta and Glenalta Food), and current advisor of Galileo Acquisition Corporation, defines a SPAC as a listed investment vehicle

After 17 successful launches, Rocket Lab’s 20th Electron mission ‘Running Out Of Toes’ failed, the company announced on Sunday. Following a successful lift-off, first stage burn, and stage separation, Rocket Lab experienced an anomaly, the company said. The issue occurred following second stage ignition, resulting in the loss of the mission, it said.

Give me five: The Japanese Earth observation startup Axelspace raised $24 million to fund a half of its planned ten satellite constellation, the company announced. Axelspace said it completed its series C funding round raising $ 23.8 million; the round allocates new shares to The Space Frontier Fund and several other venture capitals and corporate investors.