Tag Archives: ESA

In this Space Café Radio – TOP-10 MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN SPACE IN 2021, contributing editor Dr. Emma Gatti talks about her thoughts on the previous year. 2021 has been an intense year for the Space sector. From breakthrough scientific achievements to thorny diplomatic accidents, the industry seems almost to be not keeping pace with itself.

The recent note verbale on two encounters between the Chinese space station and Starlink satellites has triggered a broader discussion on Space Traffic Management. But what do we actually mean by Space Traffic Management and what do we actually need? For many (including me), Space Traffic Management has a short-term and a long-term dimension.

The US $10B space observatory has flown beyond the orbit of the Moon after completing the second of the three required mid-course correction burns, NASA reported. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched on Christmas Day to begin its 29-day deployment process. About half an hour later, it automatically deployed its solar panel to start generating its own power.

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 45th episode, a special, in our podcast series Space Cafe Podcast#045 Special: Peter Rumler, ESA, Launching James Webb Space Telescope. Episode 045 features a special guest Peter Rumler. Anyone who takes time for an interview just 40 minutes before the launch of the largest telescope of all time has a lot of nerve.

Ariane 5 has launched the giant James Webb Telescope into its transfer orbit. The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on Christmas day, and the telescope separated successfully at an altitude of close to 1500 kilometers 27 minutes into the flight.

Swiss start-up Dotphoton and ESA have signed their second contract and will continue the development of a metrologically correct image compression technology for space applications, Dotphoton announced. The aim of the new contract is to further develop, test and apply Dotphoton's quantum-inspired compression technology.

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.

Launch service provider Isar Aerospace and the German Space Agency at DLR have announced they selected the institutional payloads for Spectrum’s first flight. The rocket launch is planned for the end of 2022 as part of the microlauncher competition.  Five institutions from Germany, Norway, and Slovenia with a total of seven small satellites won the Announcement of Opportunity.

The European Space Agency (ESA) prepares the post-ISS era and Europe´s continued presence in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and solicitates private companies to work and collaborate with ESA on commercial concepts. ESA launched a project called SciHab (Science and Habitation), “an orbital human-tended platform with a modular design and open to commercial services”, the agency said.

During this week’s Space Café, SpaceWatch.Global Publisher Torsten Kriening got the chance to speak with the Director-General of the Norwegian Space Agency, Christian Hauglie-Hanssen. With a career spanning more than three decades, Christian has held executive positions across the defence, aerospace and space sectors,