Space Exploration

By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan As the Asian Century takes on an interstellar dimension, who will write the rules of the road? Rajeswari Rajagopalan writes that space will likely be no exception to Asia’s great power rivalries. The outer space environment has undergone significant changes in the last decade. Countries in …

Israel’s Space Agency (ISA) and the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology announced on 10 October 2018 that they will support the Lunar projects of the SpaceIL organization with up to U.S.$2 million in funding. SpaceIL is an Israeli startup founded in 2010 by engineers Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari, and …

Space industry startup, Space Impulse, has assembled a team of veteran technologists and orbital-class aerospace leaders with a mission to lower costs and accelerate times to orbit by streamlining supply chain integration on a comprehensive, global business-to-business (B2B) platform. The platform is designed specifically to address the challenges of complex, …

NASA’s Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway is set to be a staging post in space – a science lab, communications hub, and holding area for robots and rovers and a jumping off point for future deep space transportation. The Gateway will be pivotal for the expansion of humanity’s presence on the Moon, Mars, …

At UNISPACE50+, held earlier this year to celebrate 50 years of space, a new competition was launched by NewSpace 2060 in collaboration with the Moon Village Association (MVA) to encourage everyone to engage with the vision of a NewSpace economy by 2060. The competition encourages interested parties from entrepreneurs and …

Thai Space entrepreneur James Yenbamroong, founder and CEO of Thai New Space company mu Space, announced on 9 October 2018 a plan to establish a venture unit in 2019 in a move to go international and to create opportunities other than satellite communications. Yenbamroong said that the planned venture unit …

A “Memorandum of Understanding between the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Federal Space Agency of Russia, Roscosmos, on Joint Activities in the field of Human Spaceflight Programme,” was signed between India and Russia on 5 October 2018. The MoU was signed by Dmitriy Rogozin, Director of Roscosmos, and …

The International Astronautical Congress held in Bremen, Germany last week welcomed a record 6,500 delegates and 83 registered countries, reaffirming a global love affair with space. In addition, more than 10.000 participants attended the public day on Wednesday 3 October to tune-in live to the International Space Station (ISS) for …

The UAE’s Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) signed a Memorandum of Intent (MOI) with the European Space Agency (ESA) to define frameworks for potential cooperation in space science and technology and capacity building for human spaceflight activities. This took place on the sidelines of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) …

The French national space agency, the Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES), has opened a liaison and representative office in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, marking deeper and strategic relations in space matters between the French agency and the UAE Space Agency. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the representative office, …