Space Exploration

Airbus has been awarded a €160 million contract for ESA’s FORUM satellite to help improve the accuracy of climate forecasts by measuring the heat emitted from Earth into space, Airbus said. The Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) mission will comprise the first satellite to observe Earth in the far-infrared range.

NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat, designed to test a unique lunar orbit, successfully launched on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket. The spacecraft acts as a pathfinder for Gateway, NASA’s lunar space station supporting the Artemis program.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have selected three design concept proposals for a fission surface power system design to advance space nuclear technologies, NASA said. The design could launch by the end of the decade for a lunar demonstration. The contracts are valued at approximately US $5 million each and will fund the development of initial design concepts.

Moon company, Astrobotic and wireless charging platform develpoer, WiBotic’s wireless charging system successfully demonstrated that it can function and provide enough power for technologies to survive the 14-Earth-day-long lunar night. Developed with assistance from Bosch, the University of Washington, and the NASA Glenn Research Center

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher signed two agreements at the latest ESA Council meeting in Noordwijk, Netherlands, to advance cooperation on Earth science and the Artemis lunar missions, NASA said. ESA’s Lunar Pathfinder mission will contribute to the progression of the lunar communications infrastructure, necessary for a long-term human presence.

Our Space Café WebTalk “33 minutes with Meidad Pariente: Walking amongst giants - challenges of the private space sector in Israel, working in a country with massive defense companies” took place on Tuesday, 7th June. Meidad is an entrepreneur and innovator with more than 25 years of experience in managing technologies. He is the CTO and Co-founder of SPACECIALIST

Ball Aerospace selected launch and space systems company, Rocket Lab, to manufacture the Solar Array Panel (SAP) to power NASA’s Global Lyman-Alpha Imager of Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE) mission spacecraft planned to launch in 2025, Rocket Lab announced. The heliophysics mission will study variability in Earth’s atmosphere.

NASA has selected two science instrument suites during the second selection through the agency’s Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM) call for proposals, to explore the Moon under the Artemis program. The Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) and the Lunar Explorer Instrument for space biology Applications (LEIA)

A micrometeoroid, the size of a dust grain, slammed into one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s 18 primary mirror segments at high speed, causing a noticeable effect on its performance, NASA said. This was the fifth impact detected since Webb’s launch five and a half months ago.

The president of the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) space agency, Philippe Baptiste, signed the Artemis Accords on behalf of the country, affirming its commitment to sustainable space exploration by following a common set of principles.  France agreed to promote the beneficial use of space for all of humanity prior to celebrating CNES’ 60th anniversary.