Government

Yuri Borisov, head of the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, said the country will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) program after 2024 to focus on building its own orbiting station. The announcement was made less than two weeks after Roscosmos and NASA signed a seat exchange agreement on spacecraft traveling to and from the station.

Lunar resource development company, ispace’s subsidiary, ispace technologies U.S. will join a team, led by Draper, that has been awarded US $73 million to deliver payloads, including two communication relay satellites, to lunar orbit as well as a suite of scientific experiments to the lunar surface, ispace said.

China has successfully docked Wentian, the second module of its Tiangong space station to the first, Tianhe section, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said. The rendezvous and docking process with the forward port of Tianhe went smoothly, taking approximately 13 hours. Wentian will be moved to a side port with the help of the module's 10-meter-long robotic arm.

In this Space Café Radio – SpaceWatch.Global Event coordinator and Space Café Young Global Talents Host Chiara Moenter spoke with Robert Meisner, Earth Observation Outreach and Φ-Experience coordinator at ESA, at the Living Planet Symposium in Bonn. This symposium is the world’s largest Earth Observation conference.

NASA is postponing the fifth commercial crew mission, Crew-5, to the International Space Station (ISS) by several weeks due to damage caused to the Falcon 9 booster during transport, the agency said. The launch was originally planned for early September but NASA said it will now not take place before 29th September.

ESA’s Samantha Cristoforetti became the first European female spacewalker when she went outside the International Space Station (ISS) with Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Artemyev, to complete a seven-hour mission working on the space station. Works carried out by the pair included installing platforms and workstation adapter hardware to the Nauka laboratory module.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced its plans to develop a radar satellite constellation as part of the National Space Fund  worth over US $800 million to boost its space sector. The project makes the UAE the first Arab country to develop a constellation of SAR satellites.

After Dimirty Rogozin had been removed as head of Roscosmos, NASA announced it signed an agreement with Roscosmos to exchange seats on spacecraft traveling to the International Space Station (ISS) from September. NASA says that “integrated crews,” with Russian cosmonauts on Crew Dragon spacecraft and American astronauts on Soyuz spacecraft, are essential to safe ISS operations.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, dismissed Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, from his duties. Rogozin’s public statements that have brought international criticism for years. The new Director General of Roscosmos State Corporation will be Yuri Borisov.

Saudi Arabia is the newest country to join the Artemis Accords, demonstrating its commitment to sustainable space exploration for the benefit of all mankind guided by a common set of principles, NASA said. The Accords was signed by the CEO of the Saudi Space Commission, Mohammed bin Saud Al-Tamimi, on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.