Space Exploration

by Dmitry Oliferovich, Editor SpaceWatch Russia&CIS Last month ex-deputy prime minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin was appointed Director General the Roscosmos Corporation by Vladimir Putin, replacing Igor Komarov, who had headed the agency since 2015. Mr. Rogozin has overseen Russia’s space industry since 2011. He was placed under US sanctions …

The Yuzhnoye Design Office continues its collaboration with Orbital ATK on the production and launch of the Antares launch vehicle. The area of responsibility of the Ukrainian enterprise is the hardware for the rocket’s first stage. The Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus automated cargo spacecraft was successfully launched …

Russia has invited Turkey to send a Turkish national for Cosmonaut training, indicating that the relationship between these countries may now bear the substantial weight of ongoing human spaceflight cooperation obligations, despite difficulties on a number of issues, including Syria and the Armenia-Azerbaijani dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh. “If Turkey wants to …

Diplomatic efforts are gathering in the Middle East and North Africa toward the development of a regional mechanism for space cooperation and development among Arab countries. At the recent Global Aerospace Summit in Abu Dhabi, the region made progress toward  establishing an Arab space organisation. “In spite of our advanced …

India has solidified its space cooperation relationships in Southeast Asia, and called for rules-based order throughout the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) – to include space – during visits to Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this past week. Speaking at the annual international security conference sponsored …

What are the prospects for Britain cooperating with other countries around the world to meet its satellite navigation needs after it leaves the European Union? Is such cooperation a good use of scarce financial and industrial resources for these countries? Dr. John B. Sheldon, Chairman and President of ThorGroup GmbH …

The UAE Space Agency is participating in the high-level SpaceOps 2018 conference, hosted by the French space agency, to exchange detailed technical and mission data for the upcoming Emirates Mars Mission. Space Ops is a biannual international forum for discussing advanced and technical areas of space exploration. The 2018 event, …

China has issued an open invitation to all countries interested in participating in its planned orbital station in a bid to establish itself as a leading international space power and expand its influence. This step is especially significant at a time when NASA, the U.S. space agency, and its partners …

The South African Square Kilometer Array (SKA) has partnered with the Dutch optical telescope MeerLICHT to create the world’s first combined radio and optical telescope – a kind of ‘eyes and ears’ approach to astronomy – that could provide huge advances in both astronomy and astrophysics. Launched last week, the …

China is on the verge of a space exploration breakthrough with the launch of the “Magpie Bridge” relay satellite for its Chang’e-4 lunar mission that will explore the dark side of the Moon, further establishing itself as a preeminent global space power. China’s space agency has launched a relay satellite, …