Space Missions

In the latest Space Café “Law Breakfast with Steven Freeland”, Steven Freeland and Torsten Kriening welcomed Jenni Tapio and Alexander Soucek, at the wonderful Café Aalto in Helsinki. Over protein balls, croissant, amazing Austrian pastry and coffee, the panelists, along with a lively audience engaged in a revealing and insightful discussion

Space is becoming increasingly congested. The European Space Agency (ESA) has estimated that there are currently 128 million pieces of debris smaller than 1cm, about 900,000 pieces of debris 1–10cm in length, and around 34,000 pieces larger than 10cm in Earth orbit. This is in addition to the approximately 3,300 currently operational satellites.

China’s lunar program has made impressive strides in recent years. Perhaps the most captivating moment thus far was the landing and exploration of the Lunar far side by the Chang’e-4 spacecraft and the Yutu-2 rover, with the mission arriving at the moon in early 2019.

South Korea has become the 10th country to sign the Artemis Accords, NASA announced. The South Korean Minister of Science and ICT Lim Hyesook signed the Artemis Accords for the country in Seoul, the U.S. space agency said. South Korea joins Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

Lockheed Martin and General Motors join forces to design the next generation of lunar rovers, the companies said. “The new rovers will be capable of transporting astronauts across farther distances on the lunar surface.” They also "would be designed to survive and even operate in the two-week long night that sees temperatures of down to -280 degrees Fahrenheit".

Canada augments its investment in lunar exploration, the Canadian government and the country’s space agency said. Canada will invest $3 million in technology initiatives for lunar exploration through the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, announced.

The space computing startup Ramon.Space has raised $17.5 million in Series A funding, the company based in Palo Alto, California, said. The funding will be used to continue development of the company's computing solutions, support its rapidly expanding US and Israel operations, and expand the team globally, the company said.

The actual (r)evolution in the Outer-Space usage brings also a socio-economic change not sufficiently discussed in the community. In the discourse of risk in Outer-Space, the community keeps focusing mainly on risks resulting from space debris, and to some extent also discussing the potential impact from large constellations.

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 28th episode in our podcast series The Space Cafe Podcast: Mahsa Moghimi Esfandabadi, Space Architect. What our habitats on foreign shores will look like. Episode 028 features a special guest Mahsa Moghimi Esfandabadi.

The number of space companies around the world exceeds 10,000, with more than half in the U.S., the magazine Forbes reported, based on a new analysis from SpaceTech Analytics. Competition has led the value of space companies to cross the $4 trillion mark, the report said.