Space Exploration

By His Excellency Dr. Eng. Mohammed Nasser Al Ahbabi  Exclusive to SpaceWatch.Global Along the sidelines of local and international events, my colleagues and I at the UAE Space Agency meet with a myriad of official delegations and representatives to discuss opportunities for cooperation and the state of the global space …

Germany is taking huge steps to foster a national New Space industry. The Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI – Federation of German Industries) and its Head of Security and Raw Materials, Matthias Wachter, are at the forefront of that process. SpaceWatch.Global’s Torsten Kriening talked with Matthias Wachter about Germany’s role …

Japan is eyeing expanded space cooperation with Malaysia in a bid to deepen diplomatic and economic ties with the Southeast Asian country, and as part of an effort to balance against China’s powerful influence through such programmes as its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the region. Yoshikazu Shoji, director …

Astrobotic Technology Inc. has commended the president’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request for NASA, which grows funding for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program within the Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program (LDEP). Through CLPS, NASA and its commercial partners like Astrobotic are re-establishing American presence on the lunar surface …

By Raphael Roettgen 50 years after humans first landed on the Moon, the space sector seems to be at an inflection point. Here is why: those land and sea landings of SpaceX’s Falcon-9 boosters (first stage rockets) surely never get old to watch, but, importantly, they also mean that a …

After Solar Orbiter, ESA’s next mission observing the Sun will not be one spacecraft but two: the double satellites making up Proba-3 will fly in formation to cast an artificial solar eclipse, opening up the clearest view yet of the Sun’s faint atmosphere – probing the mysteries of its million …

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, built by Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK, was launched on board a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V space launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 23:03hrs Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 9 February 2020 (04:03hrs GMT, 10 February 2020). As planned, the spacecraft …

Investment in the design and development of space science missions results in between £2.5 and £4 in returns for each £1 invested, a new UK report shows. £523 million in funding from the UK Space Agency to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Space Science Programme (SSP) generated £1.4 billion of …

Barbara Belvisi is the CEO and founder of Interstellar Lab, a company that builds space-inspired villages here on Earth. Before starting such an unusual venture, she worked as an investor and co-founded a few STEM initiatives in Europe – namely Hello Tomorrow and Hardware Club. She then became the youngest …

Airbus-built Solar Orbiter has been fitted inside its protective fairing, mounted on top of the launcher and is now ready for its launch from Cape Canaveral in the evening of 9 February 2020. The next time the satellite will see the Sun will be when it’s in space on its …