Tag Archives: Middle East

Dr. Nasser Saidi, one of the Middle East's preeminent economists and a former government minister for economics and finance in Lebanon, has said that Arab countries should embrace China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to include participation in and contributions to China's Tiangong space station as well as the Space and Digital Silk Roads.

China has opened its first overseas centre to promote its Beidou satellite navigation system (BDS) in Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia, on 10 April 2018.

UAE’s Thuraya Telecommunications Company has announced the launch of its X5-Touch satellite phone, the world’s smallest, in its attempt to become a market leader in the satellite communications user market.

Israel's Spacecom plans to pay for its AMOS-8 communications satellite by raising U.S.$110 million through collateral bonds and bond options, just as the bid by IDB Development Corporation Ltd. to buyout Spacecom’s parent company has expired.

New discussions between the UAE and South Korea underscore their deep strategic cooperation in space in what has become an enduring collaboration between the two emerging spacepowers. The UAE Space Agency, led by Dr. Eng. Mohammed Nasser Al Ahbabi, Director-General, welcomed Mi-Ock Mun, Advisor to the President for Science and Technology from the Office of the President of the Republic of South Korea, in Abu Dhabi last week. According to a press release, the leaders and their delegations discussed further space cooperation opportunities between the two parties.

The United Arab Emirates has signed a Letter of Intent with Russia and Kazakhstan to cooperate in space exploration and future space projects. The agreement was signed during a visit to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan by a delegation from the UAE Space Agency led by Dr. Ahmad Abdullah Al Falasi, UAE Minister of State for Higher Education and Advanced Skills and Chairman of the UAE Space Agency.

After a two-year hiatus since the crash of VSS Enterprise in 2016, Virgin Galactic successfully carried out a flight test of its VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo spaceplane from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California on 5 April 2018.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman al Saud, the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, visited Lockheed Martin's satellite manufacturing facilities in California's Silicon Valley on 5 April 2018, where the prospect of a Saudi Arabian-Lockheed Martin joint venture to assemble satellites in the desert kingdom was discussed.

Morteza Barari, head of the Iran Space Agency and deputy minister at the Iranian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology told Mehr News Agency that ordinary Iranians, the economy, and society at large benefit everyday from Earth observation, communications, and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) satellites without realising it.

In its ongoing path toward developing the human and technical capacities required for a functioning space sector, the UAE has launched a student competition to build mini satellites. The UAE Space Agency, in collaboration with Khalifa University and Boeing Corporation, has announced the STEM-oriented contest called the UAE Mini-Satellite Challenge: Design it, Build it, Launch it.