Policy and Law

Women in space: a senior officer of the Australian Royal Air Force, Catherine Roberts, will become the country’s Space Division new chief next year, Australian ABC News reported. Air Vice-Marshal Catherine Roberts, who is currently the Head of Air Force Capability, will take over the newly created position of Head of Space Division from January, ABC said.

Debris from the Chinese Long March 5B rocket that brought the country’s space station to orbit crashed into the Indian Ocean north of Maldives, U.S. and Chinese officials said. The huge piece of space junk made an uncontrolled re-entry back into Earth's atmosphere over the Arabian Peninsula Saturday night.

The new NASA Administrator Bill Nelson appointed Susie Perez Quinn as the agency’s new chief of staff. Quinn served as Nelson’s chief of staff and in several other leadership positions in the Senate and, most recently, as the director of government relations at the National Governors Association.

The U.S. military has no plan to shoot down the Long March 5B's remnants when they are expected to plunge back on Earth this weekend, the Guardian quoted the U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd Austin. Hope was the rocket would land in the ocean and that the latest estimate was that it would come down between Saturday and Sunday, he said, according to the Guardian.

During this week’s Space Café, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening caught up with Nigerian-born Temidayo Oniosun, the Managing Director and Founder of Space in Africa, an African media platform, analytics and consulting company that works in the space and satellite sector.

Join SpaceWatch.Global's new Space Café "Law Breakfast with Steven Freeland" #03 series where global space law experts discuss the legal issues from everyday space activities. This event will take place on 27 May 2021 at 9:30 am CEST. Space Café "Law Breakfast with Steven Freeland" will analyse current space developments with a legal focus.

More spectrum: The German Government and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) support Isar Aerospace with €11 million contract through its C-STS programme run by the European Space Agency (ESA), Isar Aerospace said. The programme is designed to strengthen commercial space transportation services in Europe.

The former Aerojet Rocketdyne executive Frank Slazer is the new President and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, the organization said. The American non-profit organization engages in “reinforcing the value and benefits of human space exploration and space science” in the U.S.

The end of April saw the beginning of a new Space Café series, the Space Café Greater Bay Area, hosted by me, Blaine Curcio. Having spent around 10 years in Greater China, and with most of that time spent in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, I have seen firsthand the rapid evolution of China’s space sector, and also the innovation and resources in the Greater Bay Area.

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 26 April - 2 May 2021” .