Government

Our Space Café WebTalk “33 minutes with Graham Turnock - The Accelerators: ESA’s plans to warp drive European Space” took place on Tuesday, 28th June. Graham Turnock has been a Special Advisor to the European Space Agency (ESA) since 2021. Before that, he was Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency.

Commercial space company, Sierra Space, the Turkish Space Agency and aerospace engineering solutions developer ESEN Sistem Entegrasyon (ESEN), signed a five-year Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) to combine efforts on Sierra’s low Earth orbit (LEO), lunar and astronaut programs, Sierra Space said.

The Indian Space Reasearch Organisation (ISRO) said the launch of the country's first manned space flight, the Gaganyaan mission, cannot happen until at least 2024 as the agency wants to ensure that all safety systems are in place.  ISRO stated that tests were being conducted cautiously with regard to safety.

The U.S. Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Mission 6 is soon going to break its own record after conducting on-orbit experiments for over two years. The spaceplane has already spent 774 days in orbit, just 6 days shy of the previous mission record.

Our Space Cafe WebTalk “33 minutes with Dr Deganit Paikowsky - Evolution of the concept of a Space Club by the space powers” took place on Tuesday, 21st June. Dr Deganit Paikowsky is experienced in the interface and interrelations between world politics and technological domains, specializing in space, cyber- and emerging technologies. She combines academic research with hands-on experience.

NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat, designed to test a unique lunar orbit, successfully launched on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket. The spacecraft acts as a pathfinder for Gateway, NASA’s lunar space station supporting the Artemis program.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have selected three design concept proposals for a fission surface power system design to advance space nuclear technologies, NASA said. The design could launch by the end of the decade for a lunar demonstration. The contracts are valued at approximately US $5 million each and will fund the development of initial design concepts.

The Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG) conference took place from May 31 to June 3 in Singapore, the Lion City. Composed of several events such as the Asia Satellite Business Week, BroadcastAsia, CommunicAsia, ATxAI and others, it constituted a golden opportunity to catch up with the state-of-the-art technology and emerging trends across many parts of the tech sector.

George Freeman, UK Minister for Science, Research and Innovation announced a new commercial framework and additional space sector funding from the UK Government at space exhibition ILA 2022 today. The country aims to become an industry-led, government backed pioneer of commercial space sustainability.

South Korea’s domestic KSLV-2 rocket developed by the Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), successfully deployed a performance test satellite into low Earth orbit for the first time during its second flight. The spacecraft will put four smaller satellites into orbit in the next few days.