WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — Today, at 2 p.m. EST, Webb fired its onboard thrusters for nearly five minutes (297 seconds) to complete the final postlaunch course correction to Webb’s trajectory. This mid-course correction burn inserted Webb toward its final orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, nearly 1 million miles away from the Earth.

Translated from Chinese by Google Translate

NANTONG CITY, China (Jiangsu Deep Blue Aerospace PR) — On January 18th, Jiangsu Deep Blue Aerospace Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as: Deep Blue Aerospace) announced the completion of the A round of financing of nearly 200 million yuan. This round of financing was led by Zhencheng Investment, Detong Capital, Ou Rui Capital, Galaxy Ventures, Zhuoyuan Capital co-invested. 

Translated from Chinese by Google Translate

BEIJING (Galactic Energy PR) — From July to December 2021, Galactic Energy (Beijing) Space Technology Co., Ltd. completed B and B+ rounds of financing totaling 1.27 billion yuan [$200.6 million]. This round of financing was led by Dongfang Fuhai and Huaqiang Capital, AVIC Aviation Finance, China Military Financial Investment, Anhui Jiangnan Construction Investment, Chengdu New Economy Fund, Zhongtian Huifu, Yunding Capital, Tianhong Investment, Maiqiu Venture Capital, Hexin Fangce, Jiusong Heze, Tianqiong Xuanji, Zhidao Capital, Taicang Hongli, Haiyang Ruiming, Looking Up at the Starry Sky, Bright Starry Sky, and old shareholders Meihua New Potential Energy Fund, Yuanhang Capital, etc. joined the investment. We would like to express our sincere thanks to the new and old shareholders for their trust and support.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — More than 3,000 experiments have been conducted aboard the  International Space Station during the 21 years humans have been living and working in space. These experiments have provided insights helping improve life back on Earth and explore farther into the solar system. Researchers have shared these results in thousands of scientific publications.

Over the past few months, scientists shared the outcomes of space station studies that could help us recover more water from life support systems, construct Moon bases, grow plants in space, and more.

MORGANTOWN, W.V. (West Virginia University PR) — The space economy is on track to be valued at a trillion dollars by the end of 2030, according to Piyush Mehta, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at West Virginia University. Yet space assets–equipment that is placed in space such as navigation, weather and communication satellites that serve our society daily–are threatened by space debris. 

Spire’s LEMUR satellite will explore the on-board application of advanced machine learning capabilities

VIENNA, Va. (Spire Global PR) – Spire Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPIR) (“the Company” or “Spire”), a leading provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, today announced a partnership with Dragonfly Aerospace to support the Australian Government’s Office of National Intelligence (ONI) with a second satellite as a part of its ongoing National Intelligence Community Satellite (NICSAT) program. The follow-up program, NICSAT2, will see Spire designing, building, and launching the company’s Low Earth Multi-Use Receiver (LEMUR), a 6U satellite platform, with the capability of on-board computing and processing of machine learning and artificial intelligence across multi-modal data. Dragonfly Aerospace will provide a high-performance Gecko camera using its proprietary space-proven electronics and ruggedized optics for an easy-to-integrate imaging solution for the satellite.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Airbus U.S. Space & Defense PR) – The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Commercial Systems Program Office (CSPO) has partnered with Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, Inc to evaluate Airbus’ market leading Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and its potential to support U.S national security and defense missions.

Axiom Space’s plan to send four private astronauts to the International Space Station has been delayed from Feb. 21 to March 31, NASA announced last week. “Axiom Mission 1, the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, is now targeting to launch March 31 to account for additional spacecraft preparations and space station traffic,” NASA said in a blog post. “Once aboard the orbiting laboratory, the four-person Axiom […]

Translated from Japanese by Google Translate

TOKYO, January 21, 2022 (JAXA PR) — The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is currently developing a new core rocket, the H3 rocket.

Although we have a certain prospect of responding to the technical issues confirmed in the LE-9 engine newly developed for the first stage engine of this H3 rocket, in order to ensure a reliable launch, we have decided not to launch a test flight in 2021.

So, last week I wrote a story about serious concerns being raised by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Park Service about the impact of SpaceX’s plan to launch Super Heavy/Starship rockets from its Starbase facility: Report: SpaceX’s Boca Chica Plans Face Serious Objections from FWS, NPS It generated a lot of discussion and debate (212 comments to date) and alerted my readers to a potentially serious […]

GREENBELT, Md. (NASA PR) — Scientists and engineers operating NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will answer questions about the mission’s latest milestones in a NASA Science Live broadcast at 3 p.m. EST Monday, Jan. 24, followed by a media teleconference at 4 p.m.

The broadcast will air live online on the NASA Science Live website, as well as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website.

LUXEMBOURG & SOFIA, Bulgaria (Mission Space/EnduroSat PR) — Mission Space, leading enabler and provider of satellite-based space weather monitoring and EnduroSat, leading provider of software-defined NanoSats and space services for business and academia sign a commercial agreement to launch Mission Space’s first space weather payload on EnduroSat CubeSat platform.

The planned launch is scheduled for Q4 2022 and will carry Mission Space’s set of high energy particle detectors to monitor the conditions of the sun. The new level of data and intelligence will enhance Mission Space proprietary space weather cloud platform and help satellite operators detect solar storms early, quantify risks and monitor increased levels of radiation for better asset protection.