Space Exploration

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Political Affairs Office plays an integral and varied role in the organisation. Torsten Kriening was lucky enough to spend some time with Christina Giannopapa, Head of Political Affairs Office, Office Strategy Department, Director General’s Services, ESA, to find out more about her role and the …

Israeli not-for-profit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) completed the construction of the SpaceIL lunar lander and, in a ceremony at IAI facilities prior to being shipped to Cape Canaveral, placed a time capsule on board the spacecraft that will stay on the Moon indefinitely. The spacecraft, recently named Beresheet …

The President of the Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES), the French national space agency, spoke with Chinese counterparts on 10 December 2018 about Sino-French cooperation in space-based climate change monitoring, oceanography, environmental monitoring, space exploration, and space science. Jean-Yves Le Gall addressed the preparatory meeting of the French-Chinese joint science …

Clear Objectives for a New Space Pioneer The UAE Space Agency has set out its stall right from the very beginning. It is highly ambitious, and since its establishment just four years ago, it has come an incredibly long way. It has overseen the initiation the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) …

The Government of India headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the agreement on cooperation in space research for peaceful purposes with Uzbekistan, according to a Trend News Agency report citing local Uzbek media. The agreement was signed between the two countries on 1 October 2018 during the first …

India and Japan have scheduled their first annual bilateral space dialogue in March 2019, where they will discuss cooperation and coordination on a range of civil and national security space issues,  ranging from space-based maritime domain awareness and satellite reconnaissance through to the harmonization of positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) …

The Russian state space corporation Roscosmos has been accused by a Russian journalist of spending “billions on space but kopecks” on the engineering talent required for the sustainable and long-term success of Russia’s space ambitions. Vladimir Koryagin, an investigative journalist for Lenta, wrote a report titled “A Flight to Nowhere: …

China successfully launched its Chang’e 4 lunar probe on Saturday, 8 December 2018, as part of its overall goal to establish itself as a global space power and spread its strategic influence throughout Eurasia. The mission was launched via a Long March 3B rocket, which carries a lunar probe from …

By James Yenbamroong Mankind has always been defined by our collective curiosity. We constantly push for greater things, expanding our knowledge and influence over the world around us. Some achieved things that were previously thought impossible. The Wright brothers flew the first fixed-winged aircraft, Yuri Gagarin was the first man …

Following a string of high-profile incidents, failures, and corruption scandals and allegations, Russia’s state space corporation, Roscosmos, has hit back at its Russian and international critics in a bizarre claim that criticism of the struggling space programme is an “information attack” designed to discredit Roscosmos and its efforts at reforming …