Space Exploration

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with Sun Explorer Solar Orbiter is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 7-8 February 2020. RUAG Space is supplying the thermal insulation, the structure of the satellite, and the on-board computer.

By Raphael Roettgen - We are only one month into the new decade and, while we have not yet seen the SpaceX/BlueOrigin/OneWeb type mega financing rounds of 2019, this month has brought over U.S.$280 million in disclosed financing transactions in the space sector.

2020 promises to be a big year in space, but not only for the well-known events you keep on hearing about, such as the expected crewed launches from U.S. soil on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and Boeing’s Starliner. In the background, thousands of new space entrepreneurs are executing on business plans that take advantage of the tremendous decrease of the costs of accessing space and operating in it. Many of these entrepreneurs have important milestones in 2020.

Russia is willing to assist the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan in developing its second satellite and in the selection, training, and launch of the first Turkmen astronaut, according to Yuri Baturin – vice president of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonauts, politician, and a former cosmonaut – during a visit to the Turkmen capital Ashgabat on 25 January 2020.

NASA has finalized the first 16 science experiments and technology demonstrations, ranging from chemistry to communications, to be delivered to the surface of the Moon under the Artemis program.

Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall was the guest of honour at the international Human Spaceflight Symposium organized in Bangalore, India, on 24 January 2020 by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA)

AAC Clyde Space has been selected to supply the power system to the lunar lander mission led by the U.S. company Intuitive Machines. An engineering model and flight models will be delivered to support launch in 2021.

The Bartolomeo platform from Airbus gives new opportunities for research on the International Space Station (ISS). The European Space Agency (ESA) has now firmly booked a payload slot for a Norwegian instrument to monitor plasma density in the Earth's atmosphere.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and the European Space Policy Institute, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and briefs. This is ESPI Briefs No. 36: ‘European RTD Policy, Competitiveness and Space’, originally published in November 2019.

Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall was in Washington, DC, on 17 January 2020 at the invitation of His Excellency Philippe Etienne, France’s Ambassador to the United States, to extend CNES’s New Year wishes to the U.S. space community