Government

ESA announced the development of the World Settlement Footprint in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Google Earth Engine team, aimed to improve the understanding of trends in global urbanisation. This will be the world’s most comprehensive dataset on human settlement, ESA said.

NASA SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts docked to the ISS more than 30 minutes ahead of schedule, less than 24 hours after launching from the Kennedy Space Center. NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer arrived aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance. The Crew-3 mission had a smooth launch on 10th November on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts safely splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft, NASA reported. The agency’s second long-duration commercial crew mission set the record for the longest spaceflight by a U.S. crewed spacecraft. 

NASA announced that due to the challenges and progress of their lunar exploration plans, the first human landing under Artemis will be delayed by a year. A safe and quick return of astronauts to the Moon in more than 50 years is still a priority for the agency.

ESA and GHGSat announced at COP26 that they were to support the United Nations Environment Programme’s new International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO). Methane has more than 80 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide. Therefore, reducing emissions of this gas is one of the fastest ways to slow down the rate of global warming.

The CEO of the French space agency CNES, Philippe Baptiste, is pushing ahead with the reorganization of the agency, the French newspaper La Tribune reports. The reorganization of CNES entered a new phase with discussions between the unions and management, the paper reports. Baptiste has chosen to push CNES towards a matrix organization

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Aerospace News Roundup 25-31 October 2021”. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! A special shout-out to our friends at SpaceWatch.Global,

Space is a militarised domain, and it has been since the dawn of the space age, with both superpowers deploying satellites to support terrestrial military operations, especially in relation to the command and control of nuclear weapons. The growing dependency of modern military forces on space capabilities has seen the military role of space expand across a full spectrum of relevant activities

South Korea’s first domestically built rocket reached its designated altitude but the dummy payload it was carrying could not be deployed into orbit, Naro Space Center said. The third-stage engine shut down 46 seconds early and therefore could not release the 1500-kg payload at orbital speed. Nuri lifted off an hour later than planned as the 47.2-m rocket’s valves had to be examined.

Imagine if in all of human history no one had yet explored the oceans. Imagine if our first proverbial “toe in the water” was a mere 70 years ago but we had the technology of today with which to explore and exploit it. That’s very much the situation for space – the whole planet is converging on space at the same time. Let that sink in.