Space

Paris, 14 April 2021. – Indonesia adopts Iridium’s Push-to-Talk across the widespread country, Iridium said. The Republic of Indonesia’s government has adopted Iridium Push-to-Talk (PTT) devices and will deploy 500 Iridium PTT handsets to support communication efforts across the country, Iridium said.

Many of us were made aware of an alleged near-miss between two satellites in low earth orbit, one operated by SpaceX and the other by OneWeb. With the growing number of participants in the space domain, the issues of coordination and planning of space activities, as well as the development of common space operation practices, protocols, or norms of behavior are increasingly critical. 

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 25th episode in our podcast series The Space Cafe Podcast: Alice Gorman - Space Archaeologist and why Elon Musk will never call her back. Episode 025 features a special guest Alice Gorman. Alice Gorman has brought together astrophysics and archaeology to create the fascinating field of space archaeology. She talks about what exactly it is and why it could be crucial to the future of space travel in this fascinating episode of the Space Cafe Podcast.

Paris, 13 April 2021. – The rideshare provider Exolaunch launched a new “environmentally responsible” space tug system, the German new space company said. The program dubbed Reliant features a new line of orbital transfer vehicles (OTV) that bring satellites into their custom orbits are that Exolaunch considers “fully sustainable” – “the first of its kind in the OTV industry.”

Paris, 13 April 2021. – Looking for another hero: Space Hero, “the World‘s first ever global casting show” for a trip to the International Space Station (ISS), signed an agreement with NASA for a feasibility study of a such a mission, Space Hero said. The agreement was signed at a significant date in human history, Space Hero said, as April 12, 2021 marks the 60th anniversary of the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin.

Paris, 13 April 2021. – The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded General Atomics, Blue Origin, and Lockheed Martin as prime contractors to demonstrate a nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system in 2025. The agency selected the industry team to design, develop and demonstrate a nuclear thermal propulsion system in space, above low Earth orbit, DARPA said.

Join SpaceWatch.Global for an interesting and informative Space Café WebTalk featuring Professor Chris Welch, Head of Space Payloads Laboratory + Director MSc Space Studies, International Space University, Strasbourg, France. This event will take place on 27 April 2021 at 4:00 pm CEST. Although not widely known, since the start of the space age there have been a number of space art projects with works being flown on satellites.

Two satellites from the OneWeb and Starlink constellations came dangerously close – as close as 60 meters – last week but could avoid a collision, The Verge reported. The Verge quoted representatives from the US Space Force and OneWeb who said that two satellites from the fast-growing constellations of OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink dodged a dangerously close approach with one another in orbit last weekend.

Not yet: NASA rescheduled Mars helicopter Ingenuity’s maiden flight to “no earlier than April 14”, the agency said. Based on data from the Ingenuity Mars helicopter that arrived late Friday night from a high-speed spin test of the rotors, NASA has chosen to reschedule the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s first experimental flight, NASA said.

The U.S. Government’s budget for fiscal year 2022 requests $24.7 billion for NASA, a 6.3 per cent increase compared to this year’s spending bill, the White House said. The President’s “discretionary request” includes $6.9 billion for NASA’s human exploration of Moon, Mars and beyond, an unspecified amount for its robotic exploration of the solar system