Space Exploration

The ESPI Space Venture Europe is an annual publication that provides a complete overview of the European New Space sector with a focus on private investments in European space start-ups. For 2020, the report provides key information on the evolution of Europe’s entrepreneurship environment and start-up dynamics as well as the impact of COVID-19.

Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based provider of launch vehicles, spacecraft, and in-space services, will launch its Blue Ghost lunar lander on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in 2023, the company said. Blue Ghost will be carrying ten payloads for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, together with other commercial payloads.

Europe launches Moonlight, a bold proposal to put in place a commercially viable satellite constellation around the Moon. The European Space Agency (ESA) signed contracts with two consortia to develop a Moon constellation and provide telecommunications and navigation services for all kind of Moon missions.

He did not welcome the uncontrolled return of China’s Long March launcher pieces for its Mars mission, but he congratulated China for the release of its first photos from the Zhurong Mars rover. “Congratulations to the China National Space Administration on receiving the first images from the Zhurong Mars rover,” the new NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

During this week’s Space Café, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening met with space strategist and former Chief Executive for the UK Space Agency, Katherine Courtney, to discuss space sustainability and her role as founder of education charity PrimarySpace.

“The first ever lunar communications & navigation service”: Europe pushes ahead with its plan to place communication and navigation satellites around the Moon. Under its Moonlight initiative, the European Space Agency (ESA) supports two consortia of European companies which embark on the design of telecommunications and navigation services for Moon missions.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Aerospace News Roundup 10 May - 16 May 2021”. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup!

A historic step: China landed a rover on Mars on Saturday, making it the second space-faring nation after the United States to land on the Red Planet, China’s state media and the worldwide media reported. The uncrewed Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Prof. Thomas Schildknecht, Director of Swiss Optical Ground Station and Geodynamics Observatory Zimmerwald and Vice-Director of Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern, Switzerland, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, publisher of SpaceWatch.Global.

The research and development group Space Applications Services has been mandated by the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop and deliver three reactors to produce oxygen from lunar soil, the group said. Space Applications said it will lead eight European companies and R&D institutes