Space Exploration

Paris, 11 December 2020. – The European Space Agency (ESA) contracted four Italian space firms to go ahead with the development of its reusable Low Earth Orbit Space Rider, ESA announced. Space Rider is a reusable spacecraft of about the size of two minivans and can carry customer payloads of …

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 17th episode in our podcast series The Space Cafe Podcast: Kellie Gerardi – high stakes and deep insights into the potentially first social media star in space. Episode 017 features special guest Kellie Gerardi. Kellie Gerardi has embarked on an unusual career path that …

Paris, 10 December 2020. – SpaceX made the day again: Elon Musk’s Starship SN8 exploded after a successful test flight of nearly seven minutes when SpaceX tried to land it back at its Cameron County launch site in Texas. SpaceX went ahead yesterday afternoon with the long awaited first high-altitude …

Paris, 10 December 2020. – NASA has selected 18 astronauts for its Artemis Moon missions, the agency said. Vice President Mike Pence introduced the Artemis team during the eighth National Space Council meeting at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida yesterday. The astronauts come from a diverse range of backgrounds, …

Paris, 8 December 2020. – Mapping the Galaxy in 3D: The European Space Agency (ESA) released millions of new sources and data collected by the Gaia telescope that observes deep space since 2013. Gaia’s Early third Data Release (EDR3) “contains detailed information on more than 1.8 billion sources, detected by …

Paris, 8 December 2020. – The flow of good news doesn’t stop: SpaceX has launched its next generation Cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) while the company prepares for the next important test flight of its Starship in Texas today. The unpiloted and automated Cargo Dragon resupply …

Paris, 7 December 2020. – Back from a five billion kilometers journey after six years: The Japanese Hayabusa-2 probe brought samples from the asteroid Ryugu to Earth and parachuted a capsule with the precious material in South Australia, Japan’s space agency JAXA and Australia’s space agency reported. The capsule – …

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and The Strategist, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles. This is “Australia’s space sector should aim higher” by Malcolm Davis, originally published on 1 December 2020.   Australia’s space sector is making steady progress towards establishing a sovereign space capability, both …

Luxembourg, 4 December 2020. – Googling the Universe: The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), a large telescope operated by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, mapped approximately three million galaxies in just 300 hours. The ASKAP survey is “like a Google map of the Universe where most of the millions …

Luxembourg, 4 December 2020. – China’s spectacular Moon mission continues: The Chang’e-5 probe left Moon’s surface yesterday with samples of dust and regolith on board, the BBC reported. “Right on cue, at 15:10 GMT, an ascent vehicle lit its engine to head up to a service module that will shepherd …