Announcements

DECEMBER 1, 2022 At NASA, France's Macron and US vow strong space cooperation   French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration headquarters in Washington on November 30, 2022.   Paris and Washington pledged Wednesday to reenforce their cooperation in space, particularly on exploration and climate, during a visit by France's Emmanuel Macron to NASA headquarters alongside US Vice President Kamala Harris. The French president, on a state visit to the United States, highlighted the American lunar program Artemis, whose first uncrewed test mission launched in mid-November with participation of …

SEOUL, South Korea — President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea said Nov. 28 that the country will land a robotic spacecraft on the moon in 2032 and on Mars in 2045, when the nation will mark the 100th anniversary of liberation from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule. This was part of a set of broader space exploration goals the president unveiled during a keynote speech at the Korea Space Forum 2022 here. To reach the ambitious goals, he promised to double the government’s space development budget in the next five years and funnel at least 100 trillion won ($74.7 billion) into …

Aug 15 (Reuters) - Russia's space agency on Monday unveiled for the first time a physical model of what a planned new Russian-built space station will look like, suggesting Moscow is serious about abandoning the International Space Station (ISS) and going it alone. Russia, in the throes of what some Kremlin hardliners believe is an historic rupture with the West sparked by sanctions imposed over what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, is rushing to reduce its dependency on Western nations and forge ahead on its own or cooperate with countries like China and Iran. The West, which …

British government releases national space strategy by Jeff Foust — September 28, 2021   The British government's new National Space Strategy sets several goals, such as becoming a leader in smallsat launch, but offers few quantitative metrics for measuring progress. Image credit: Orbex/Skyrora WASHINGTON — The British government released a highly anticipated space strategy Sept. 27 that outlines its plans to turn the country into a major global space power, but does away with a key metric it had been using to measure its progress. The National Space Strategy sets five general goals for the United Kingdom in space, including growing its space economy, promoting …

Russia is going back to the moon this year By Meghan Bartels Russia is revisiting its Soviet space heritage for a new series of missions that will take the nation back to the moon. The first of those missions, dubbed Luna 25, is scheduled to launch this October, ending a 45-year drought of Russian moon landings with the nation's first arrival at the south pole, where, like everyone else targeting the moon, Russian scientists want to study water locked below the surface in permanent ice. "The moon is the center of our program for the next decade," Lev Zelenyi, scientific …

AVIATION WEEK AEROSPACE DAILY & DEFENSE REPORT March 26, 2021 Vol. 275        Issue 58 NASA's Commercial Partnering To Include Space Communications Mark Carreau, mark.carreau@gmail.com HOUSTON--NASA's nearly two-decade-long push to establish game-changing commercial partnerships in low Earth orbit operations to expand human exploration and scientific research and grow the economy is broadening its scope to include a new role for private sector communications and navigation assets and services. In short, NASA is looking to the private sector for more than launch services and cargo deliveries as it makes its way to the Moon and beyond. As with the agency's pursuit of commercial …

AVIATION WEEK AEROSPACE DAILY & DEFENSE REPORT March 19, 2021 Vol. 275 Issue 53 13.  Research Effort Suggests Mars Water Not Lost To Space Mark Carreau, mark.carreau@gmail.com Though the Martian surface is now cold and dry, imagery dating back to the 1960s reveals a planet where large amounts of water once flowed and pooled, perhaps contributing to an environment amenable to life. A new study of data gathered from a steady sequence of NASA Mars orbiters, landers and rovers focused on a "Follow the Water" theme has emerged with a surprise. While some of the Martian water--estimated to have once been …