Space Resources

by Kiran Mohan Vazhapully Last month, based on a Reuters report, Chris Borgen wrote in Opinio Juris about the White House chalking out details of a United States (US) sponsored international framework dubbed “Artemis Accords”,  to facilitate commercial mining on the Moon. They are conceived as inter-agency bilateral agreements similar …

Lunar services company ispace, revealed the final design of its lunar lander that will be used in the first mission of the company’s HAKUTO-R program, a multinational commercial lunar exploration program. HAKUTO-R’s ‘Mission 1’ also reached the final hardware design phase, known as the Critical Design Review (CDR). The HAKUTO-R …

In this week’s Space Cafè WebTalk, Salem Al Marri, Assistant Director General for Scientific and Technical Affairs, Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai, UAE and Head of the UAE Astronaut Program talked about the ambitions and the diversity of the UAE National Space Program. He highlighted the current projects, such …

In this week’s Space Cafè WebTalk, Niklas Hedman, Chief of the Committee, Policy and Legal Affairs Section of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) in Vienna talked about the governance phases under the 60 year history of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space …

NASA awarded the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, a contract to support all phases of current and future planetary protection missions to ensure compliance with planetary protection standards. The SETI Institute will work with NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection (OPP) to provide technical reviews and recommendations, validate biological cleanliness on …

NASA has released two NASA Interim Directives (NIDs) updating the agency’s requirements for robotic and human missions traveling to the Earth’s Moon, and human missions traveling to Mars. The first, NID 8715.128, addresses the control of forward terrestrial biological contamination associated with all NASA and NASA-affiliated missions intended to land, orbit, or …

IGLUNA project presentations take take place from the 10th of July until the 19th July, live on YouTube. In one academic year, more than 150 students from 10 different countries have gathered their knowledge around the IGLUNA program to design technologies for human survival in space. Several experts and representatives …

Celestia UK, specialists in advanced antenna systems for tracking satellites, announced that Heriot-Watt University’s Research Park will be its permanent base in Scotland, after a successful five month residency at the University’s Global Research Innovation and Discovery (GRID) facility. The largest science park in Scotland’s capital, Research Park will enable the company’s …

By Talal Al Kaissi How things began, and where they are now: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has long looked to space as a domain we would like to make a meaningful contribution to for a variety of reasons. A meeting between our late founder and President Sheikh Zayed with the Apollo …

In response to the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) have joined forces to use the collective scientific power of their Earth-observing satellite data to document planet-wide changes in the environment and human society. The wealth of these agencies’ collective information …