Space Missions

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) signed an agreement with the United Kingdom to address the information gap for space-related climate actions, the United Nations Information Service reported.  Space-based data and applications have long been utilized in climate change monitoring, research, and policy enactment.

SpaceX launched a new set of Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket over the weekend, setting a new reusability record for the vehicle before launching a Turkish communication satellite just 16 hours later. While the 52 satellites were deployed by the rocket’s upper stage, the booster completed its record-breaking 11th flight.

Kacific Broadband Satellites announced that it is migrating to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to upscale its broadband internet services for the rural regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The firm aims to complete the migration of its IT infrastructure and critical business applications by 2022.

NASA and the ESA have rescheduled the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for 24th December due to a communication problem between the spacecraft and ground equipment. JWST was placed on top of Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket over a week ago as part of launch preparations.

In this week’s Space Café Brazil by Ian Grosner, Prof. Dr. Maria Elizabeth Zucolotto, of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), talked about the importance of studying meteorites. Her work is focused, above all, on raising the population's awareness so that they know how to identify falling meteorites or warn scholars and scientists about them.

ThinkTank Maths Limited (TTM) announced they secured R&D financing from Scottish Enterprise to develop enhanced space surveillance and tracking (SST) services. Launching more and more satellites each year is congesting Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and it endangers economic activities on Earth.

Chief Executives of leading satellite operators announced that the EMEA Satellite Operators Association (ESOA) is now going to include satellite operators from all over the world. To reflect this, the Association is changing its name to Global Satellite Operators’ Association (GSOA). 

Mayday.ai, LUP, Humboldt University Berlin and the city of Leipzig are joining efforts to mitigate risks related to heat waves by launching the UrbanGreenEye project. The Federal Ministry of Transport and the German Aerospace Centre support and fund the initiative. 

Isar Aerospace and Astrocast announced they have signed a launch services agreement according to which Isar will launch Astrocast’s satellite by 2024. The rideshare mission will take the nanosatellite company’s spacecraft to Sun synchronous orbit from its launch site in Andøya, Norway. The contract includes options for the launch of additional satellites.

SpaceWatch.Global has been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts by Steven Freeland. This is “What Sort of Space “Race” Should We Be Pursuing?”, originally published 15 December 2021 at Australian Institute of International Affairs by Steven Freeland. If a war in space does take place, the devastation would be long-lasting and perhaps irreversible.