Earth observation

US$68 million of announced space-related financing rounds in April 2020 is by far the lowest number this year and indeed in a while...

DEWC Systems, Australia’s leading defence electronics systems manufacturer, has received a AUS$3.1 million (US$2.02 million) contract from the Australian Department of Defence to build the sensors for Miniaturised Orbital Electronic Warfare Sensor System (MOESS) programme, it has been reported on 28 April 2020.

On 28 April 2020 the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG), winner of the KiboCUBE programme 2017, run by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), saw their satellite deployed by JAXA from the International Space Station (ISS). The satellite – …

Songhai Labs, a knowledge broker platform based in Cameroon, and SatSure, a satellite precision company headquartered in Switzerland and with offices in India, UK, and Australia, have announced a strategic partnership.

NEC Corporation announced on 23 April 2020 that it received an order from Sumitomo Corporation for the manufacture and launch of the "LOTUSat-1" Earth observation satellite system for the Vietnam National Space Center (VNSC).

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has unveiled the existence of its own Space Command following the successful launch of the Noor-1 Earth observation satellite on 22 April 2020 (reported by SpaceWatch.Global here).

Spire Global, a global data service provider and leader AIS data solutions and weather forecasting, announced today the year-over-year results for its maritime business unit. Spire Maritime expanded into Asia and celebrated a four-fold increase in bookings in 2019. It continued to build on its successes after launching in January …

A consortium of Norwegian and Dutch research centres announced on 20 April 2020 hat it has selected satellite integrator NanoAvionics to build two nanosatellites, ‘Birkeland’ and ‘Huygens’. The purchase order is part of a military use of space (MilSpace) project under a bilateral strategic mutual assistance in research and technology …

Ball Aerospace conducted a critical design review (CDR) of the Weather System Follow-on (WSF) satellite mission, which it is building for the U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). With CDR concluded, Ball Aerospace begins full production of the satellite.

The Space Dynamics Laboratory announced on 15 April 2020 that satellite operators are flying NASA spacecraft from their homes to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.