Earth observation

The Federal Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews has announced the success of the SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) proposal led by The University of South Australia and Nova Systems. Positioned to propel Australia into the global space industry, the SmartSat CRC initiative is a collaborative research and …

Scottish New Space company Alba Orbital has announced that it has customers for its second Alba Cluster Mission slated for a third quarter 2019 launch on a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle from New Zealand. The Alba Cluster 2 mission will launch seven PocketQube satellites from the AlbaPod satellite deployer …

Boeing and the Australian Space Agency have signed a Statement of Strategic Intent to help advance the agency’s goals to expand Australia’s domestic space industry. By 2030, Australia would like to grow the space market segment from AU$3.9 billion to AU$12 billion and double space industry employment from about 10,000 …

Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), in co-operation with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), is expanding its data reception capabilities at the Inuvik Satellite Station Facility (ISSF) in Canada’s Northwest Territories. This expansion marks the next step in a long-standing and productive collaboration between SSC and NRCan. As global Earth Observation activities continue to …

Earth observation satellites play a key role in weather forecasting, climate research, monitoring of the planet’s surface and the detection of forest fires. These tasks require satellites to transmit very large amounts of data to the ground for analysis. Today’s radio systems are reaching their limits in this area. Optical …

The European Space Agency (ESA) has set up a dedicated unit to work on the standardised nanosatellites called ‘CubeSats’, teaming up with European companies to develop low-cost technology-testing missions. Missions in preparation include a double CubeSat to test rendezvous and docking techniques, and one to explore near-Earth asteroids. A fast-growing …

Two of the UK’s leading Space sector companies, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and Oxford Space Systems (OSS) have been awarded National Space Technology Programme funding to develop an innovative and stowage-efficient Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload.  This new technology delivers a truly disruptive solution and is a key enabler …

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C45) successfully launched EMISAT and 28 international customer satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR in Sriharikota. This flight marked the first mission of PSLV-QL, a new variant of PSLV with four strap-on motors. PSLV-C45 lifted off at 9:27 Hrs (IST) on 1 April …

Kleos Space S.A., the space-powered Radio Frequency Reconnaissance data provider, has signed a collaborative, non-binding, Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with leading Israeli-based end-to-end geospatial intelligence company ImageSat International N.V. (iSi) to explore opportunities to use Kleos’ maritime RF activity-based satellite data to enhance geospatial intelligence analytics. Under the MoU, the …

Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) and Airbus have signed a contract for SSC ground segment support services to the new Pléiades Neo constellation of very high resolution Earth Observation satellites. The contract marks an important step in the long-term partnership between SSC and Airbus, and extends the capabilities of both companies. The …