Space

TriSept Corporation, a leading provider of launch integration, management and brokerage services for commercial and government missions, announced on 14 January 2020 that it has procured a full mission aboard an Orbex Prime launch vehicle set to lift off in the autumn of 2022 from the UK's first spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland.

In the presence of Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Egypt’s Minister for Higher Education and Scientific Research, and Stéphane Romatet, France’s Ambassador to Egypt, Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall opened the first joint France-Egypt Space Seminar in Cairo on 14 January 2020.

OneWeb and SatixFy UK announced on 13 January 2020 plans to add a digital technology pathway payload that will include a full digital payload into OneWeb’s launch schedule during 2021.

ESA's Aeolus satellite has been returning profiles of Earth's winds since 3 September 2018, just after it was launched - and after months of careful testing these measurements are considered so good that the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is now using them in their forecasts.

As part of the official visit to China of Frédérique Vidal, the Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Centre national d’etudes spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall and Bai Chunli, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), signed a framework agreement on space cooperation on 13 January 2020.

In its latest analysis of satellite manufacturing and launch services, Satellites to be Built and Launched by 2028, Euroconsult projects that the satellite market will experience a radical transformation in the quantity, value and mass of the satellites to be built and launched with a four-fold increase in the number of satellites at a yearly average of 990 satellites to be launched, compared to a yearly average of 230 satellites in the previous decade.

Group 42, an Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence and cloud computing company, announced today that it has acquired Bayanat for Mapping and Surveying Services LLC, an end-to-end and customised geospatial data products and services provider.

Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland GmbH, one of the leading private broadcasters in Germany, has renewed its standard definition (SD) distribution agreement with the satellite operator SES, SES announced on 9 January 2020.

Thales Alenia Space (the joint venture between Thales, 67% and Leonardo, 33%) and Thales have signed a contract with The French defense procurement agency Direction générale de l’armement (DGA) to carry out a concept study concerning intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) applications using a StratobusTM type platform to meet French army operational needs.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Defence Agency (EDA) are embarking on new cooperative projects for exploring unknown or potentially hazardous environments: harnessing drones for the monitoring of disaster-stricken regions or toxic spill sites and making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to navigate across the surface of asteroids or other terra incognita.