Space Exploration

The so-called NewSpace trend is developing, creating new opportunities and new challenges for all actors of the space sector. Understanding what is happening and (potential) implications is essential for sound decision-making.

This is ESPI Executive Brief “Commercial Space Exploration", originally published in July 2019.

The 18th cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station from SpaceX delivered a historic mission for NanoRacks. NanoRacks, the leading provider of commercial access to low-Earth orbit, transported the materials for the science experiments that will be conducted by the first Emirati astronaut upon his arrival to the International Space Station (ISS) in late September 2019.

It was a spectacle, perhaps one of the greatest ever to be hosted on the National Mall.  Projecting the pictorial narrative of what many, including this author, consider to be humankind’s greatest achievement onto the Washington Monument was a stroke of genius. 

Airbus has been selected by the European Space Agency to build the European component of the SMILE satellite (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer).

The Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, Cheops, has successfully passed the final analysis review for its launch on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

ispace Europe has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to be part of the Science Team for PROSPECT, a programme which seeks to extract water on the Moon.

Last March, Secure World Foundation was pleased to announce the inaugural Summit for Space Sustainability, to be held in Washington, DC on June 25-26, 2019. Our creation of the Summit was driven by the rapid growth in both the number and diversity of space actors, the emergence of new kinds of space activities, and the resulting space sustainability challenges posed by these developments.

The first round-trip to the Red Planet will see a European orbiter bringing martian samples back to Earth. ESA is opening the door to industry to build the spacecraft that will deliver the precious rocks, dust and gas from Mars – the key to understanding whether life ever existed on our closest planetary neighbour.

Hundreds of people across the UK have shared their astonishing memories, photos and scrapbooks for a special compilation to mark 50 years since the Apollo Moon landing in 1969.