Government

The Morrison Government has given regulatory approval for tiSPACE to launch their rocket from the Whalers Way launch site. The Taiwanese company will launch its rocket from the newly licensed launch facility in South Australia later this year. tiSPACE will conduct a test flight of its Hapith I rocket from the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex, operated by Southern Launch.

Russia postponed its first mission to the Moon in 45 years due to problems during tests of the Luna-25 spacecraft, Roscosmos announced. The mission was originally scheduled for 1st October from the Vostochny Cosmodrome had now been moved to May 2022. The Luna-25 mission aimed at the Moon's south pole will probe ice deposits.

HEO Robotics has raised a seed financing round to launch HEO Inspect. This marks the first major investment in the already profitable company. The round was led by David Harding, the founder and CEO of Winton Group. As part of the investment, he has nominated the experienced investor and advisor Joshua Kennedy-White to the company board.

Chinese astronauts performed a spacewalk to add the finishing touches to a robotic arm on the Tiangong space station. Astronauts Nie Haisheng and Liu Boming installed foot stops and a workbench on the station's robotic arm, said the China Manned Space Agency.

The leaders of BRICS Space Agencies have signed an agreement to share remote sensing satellite data the Indian Space Research Organisation reports. The heads of space agencies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa signed the agreement via video meeting.

Blue Origin filed suit on 13th August against NASA in federal court, disputing the agency’s selection of SpaceX to build a Human Landing System (HLS). The law suit comes after both Blue Origin and Dynetics filed protests with the GAO (Government Accountability Office) in April, which were soundly rejected.

NASA and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) across the United States have joined forces to bring “historically underrepresented and underserved communities onboard,” said Mike Kincaid, NASA’s associate administrator of STEM Engagement. The news comes after NASA introduced Mission Equity in June to assess the agency's programs, grants, and procurements

The launch of Orbital Flight Test-2 to the International Space Station had to be postponed as the CST-100 Starliner’s propulsion system failed. Several valves did not open as designed during the launch countdown on 3rd August. The valves connect to thrusters that enable abort and in-orbit manoeuvring, NASA said.

SpaceWatch.Global has been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. This is “Cyberspace and outer space are new frontiers for national security, according to an expert report”, originally published 13 August 2021 at The Conversation by Steven Freeland, Danielle Ireland-Piper, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, Jonathan Crowe, Samuli Haataja, Wendy Bonython.

The space flight startup Astra closed a launch contract with Spire Global for next year, the Nasdaq-listed company said. Spire Global plans to begin launching with Astra next spring, the launch company said, without giving further details. Spire uses its multi-purpose satellite constellations to source hard to acquire,