Space

Hisdesat, the Spanish Government satellite operator, has announced that the first satellite in the SPAINSAT NG program, SpainSat NG-I, will be ready for launch in the summer of 2024 after confirming that the program is making good progress. Space X will be responsible for launching the Spanish satellite into orbit with a Falcon 9 launcher from its base at Cape Canaveral or from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Argentina has become the 28th signatory to the Artemis Accords, signing the document at a ceremony at the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires on Thursday, July 27, 2023. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson participated in the signing ceremony for NASA, and Daniel Filmus, Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation, signed on behalf of Argentina. Argentine President Alberto Fernández and Marc Stanley, the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, also were in attendance.

Aeolus, the European Space Agency (ESA)’s wind mission, reentered Earth’s atmosphere on 28 July at around 21:00 CEST above Antarctica, with the US Space Command confirming the reentry. The reentry came after a series of complex maneuvers that lowered Aeolus’ orbit from an altitude of 320 km to just 120 km to reenter the atmosphere and burn up. Crucially, these maneuvers, the first assisted reentry of its kind, positioned Aeolus so that any pieces that may have failed to burn up in the atmosphere would fall within the satellite’s planned Atlantic ground tracks.

The European Space Agency's Galileo Project has launched its new Telemetry, Tracking, and Control (TT&C) facility, featuring a 13.5-meter diameter parabola dish on top of a 10-meter-high building structure of steel and concrete. Known as the acronym TTCF-7, the facility is within the premises of Europe’s launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, beside its older sibling TTCF-2.

Pixxel has won a multi-crore grant from iDEX (Innovations for Defence Excellence under the Ministry of Defence) for the Mission DefSpace Challenge under iDEX Prime (Space) to manufacture miniaturized multi-payload satellites for the Indian Air Force. Oixxel received this grant as part of the SPARK grants by iDEX. As a result, this grant will equip Pixxel to develop small satellites of up to 150 kgs for Electro-Optical, Infrared, Synthetic Aperture Radar, and Hyper Spectral purposes. 

The European Union Agency for the Space Program (EUSPA), under the auspices of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of European Union, is organizing the 2023 edition of the EU Space Week. The event will hold from 7-9 November 2023, and it will bring together the EU Space community showcasing the latest updates on the EU Space Program. The event is also a unique opportunity to get an up-close look at how European businesses – and society in general – benefit from the EU Space Program.

Nokia Bell Labs is deploying the first cellular network on the Moon to demonstrate that cellular technologies can provide the critical communications needs for future lunar or Martian missions. This is because NASA selected Nokia to participate in its Tipping Point initiative, which seeks industry-developed space technologies that can foster the development of commercial space capabilities and benefit future NASA missions.

Stellar, a mobility-driven, deep-tech, and sustainable connectivity company uniting cellular, Wi-Fi, and satellite, has successfully gathered data on the thousands of kilometers of Tour de France 2023 routes. The Company did this as part of its connectivity mapping product "streets." Through this, Stellar has been monitoring and assessing the true quality of the internet while traveling.

Astrocast, a satellite IoT operator, has announced the extension of its partnership with Airbus Defence and Space (Airbus) to enhance the capabilities of satellite Internet of Things (SatIoT) technology. As a result, it enables Astrocast to further increase its network capacity to provide the most reliable and cost-effective SatIoT solutions to its customers.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded Spire Global a €16 million phased contract for the EURIALO project. The project will develop the preliminary design and demonstrator for a global space-based independent aircraft surveillance system. It is part of ESA’s program of Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) in its Directorate of Connectivity and Secure Communications.