Spaceleaks daily: Mar 17, 2021

The newsletter for space professionals

Spaceleaks daily: Mar 17, 2021

Worldwide:

• CPUT to launch South African mini-constellation of three satellites
• China to construct fifth spaceport for commercial launches
• ESA Alpha pre-launch press briefing
• UK’s Johnson seeks a minor seat in the space race
• NASA Seeks U.S. Citizens for Ground-Based Simulation of Life in Space
• NASA request for information on development of flight capacity building programs for emerging international partners
• Philippines’ second cube satellite Maya-2 launched into orbit
• ISRO chief K Sivan reveals Space Agency’s ongoing projects

Business:

• Outspoken LEO critic Tom Choi details plans for new CurvaNet Constellation
• Orange launches affordable satellite broadband service in France
• Harvest announces filing of the preliminary prospectus for Canada’s first Space Innovation Index ETF
• Relativity Space Terran 1 secures first DoD launch contract
• Satellite operators want a seat at the table in space security discussions
• Anywaves partners with Loft Orbital
• World’s first satellite capacity aggregator unveils new look cloud platform neXat
• Mission control awarded $1.16M from Canadian Space Agency to develop payload data management system for streamlining operations in Lunar missions
• Furukawa Electric, JAXA working to reduce weight and cost of next-generation Hall thrusters

Technology:

• SpaceX eyes Summer 2021 for Starship’s orbital launch debut
• 3 tiny Israeli satellites to orbit earth on just 1 gram of fuel a day
• How Galileo performed its authenticated positioning fix

Science:

• Space Health Institute adds astronauts, scientists to Scientific Advisory Board
  
• Three bacterial strains discovered on space station may help grow plants on Mars

Reports:

• ESA Impact – March 2021 Council edition
  
• Impact: More SATCOM Consolidation On The Horizon? An NSR Report

U.S. Space Force Gen. David Thompson would support commercial services to remove orbital debris, and apparently he was not aware of companies like Astroscale.

This article claims that America needs new mechanisms to compete with China in space.

NASA will host a virtual symposium exploring rise of commercial space Wednesday, March 17, through Friday, March 19, with a final session Thursday, March 25.