HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet concluded their spacewalk at 2:10 p.m. EDT, after 6 hours and 28 minutes. In the eighth spacewalk of the year outside the International Space Station, the two astronauts completed the deployment of a new ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) on the far end of the left (port) side of the station’s backbone truss structure (P6).

Neptune One becomes first space launch operator to fly from Space Coast Spaceport  

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – Space Perspective today announced that its NeptuneOne spaceship test vehicle successfully launched from the Space Coast Spaceport, located adjacent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The vehicle flew to its target altitude and traversed the Florida peninsula before splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico and being recovered. The historic 6 hour and 39 minute flight marks the first major step towards flying customers to space for an unrivaled experience and perspective of our world from space.

The Law Concerning the Promotion of Business Activities Related to the Exploration and Development of Space Resources was passed by the National Diet of Japan 

Tokyo, Japan, June 15 – ispace, inc. (ispace) issued the following statement regarding the passage of the Law Concerning the Promotion of Business Activities Related to the Exploration and Development of Space Resources by the National Diet of Japan on June 15, 2021. 

Statement by Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO, ispace: 

“We enthusiastically support the passage of Japan’s space resources law and applaud the nonpartisan parliamentary group of diet members for taking a swift action to lead the world in this endeavor, alongside other nations who have recently passed similar legislation or who may be in preparations to do so. I am very certain that this rule making effort will bring opportunities and  order to commercial activities and should offer a strong sense of the future growth of our industry, as well as the sustainable future of humanity, to many stakeholders worldwide.” 

TOKYO (ispace PR) – ispace, inc. (ispace) announced that it signed loan agreements totaling of $17.9 million (USD)[1] with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, MUFG Bank, Ltd., Resona Bank, Limited, and Japan Finance Corporation. As of May 31, ispace’s total amount of bank loans reached $20 million (USD)[2] including the existing loan from Japan Finance and Dai-ichi Kangyo Credit Cooperative.

China and Russia released the following presentation about their planned International Lunar Research Station. The two countries are seeking international partners for the venture.

AWS Direct Connect Delivery Partner certification is an important part of leading satellite connectivity provider’s multi-cloud strategy

LUXEMBOURG, 17 June 2021 – SES today announced it has joined the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect Delivery Partner program. Through a technical and business review process, AWS validated SES’s ability to connect its customers directly to their AWS services over its network of multi-orbit satellites. This provides SES customers flexible, secure, reliable access to their cloud-based applications and services from virtually any location around the world. This is a major advantage to both enterprises and government users who require reliable bandwidth while working in remote locations. SES is the first satellite operator to achieve AWS Direct Connect Partner status.

HOUSTON (SpaceFund PR) — The fast-rising SpaceFund venture capital team announced its newest member today. James Mertz brings a highly successful career in family office, energy, and real estate investing to a team that has already shaken the space investment world with its early successes and thought-leading investment strategies. Mr. Mertz joins Meagan Crawford as a managing partner of the rapidly-growing “BlastOff” fund, where they oversee and manage the fund’s portfolio of leading-edge space technology companies.

“James Mertz is a perfect fit for SpaceFund. He is a quick study, has high integrity, is sharp, hard-working, and has a laser focus on the bottom line and creating value for our investors,” said SpaceFund co-founder and board chair, Rick Tumlinson. “Coming from outside of the space field, he helps us continue to balance our vision with even more rock-solid business acumen.”

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Florida Congressman Michael Waltz is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. In January, he completed a two-year on the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. So, he should know what he’s talking about on space.

Alas, he is severely factually challenged about the very thing he is supposedly an expert. Here is the assessment he gave to Fox News the other day about NASA and the U.S. space program:

AMSTERDAM (Spacebit/Wevolver PR) — The Spacebit Engineering Challenge enables engineers around the world to contribute to the development of “Asagumo 2.0”, a four-legged walking rover that is set to fly to the Moon with the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program in 2021 and 2022.

The challenge was catalyzed by the recent partnership agreement signed between UK-based Spacebit and the engineering community platform, Wevolver.

LeoLabs Investment in Portugal Aligned with Commitment to Space Sustainability

MENLO PARK, Calif., June 16, 2021 (LeoLabs PR) — LeoLabs, Inc., the world’s leading commercial provider of low Earth orbit (LEO) mapping and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) services, today announced the Azores as the site for its next space radar. As a strategic addition to LeoLabs expanding global constellation of LEO sensors, the Azores Space Radar will go operational in the first half of 2022.

by Tijana Birdjan

In a week of big announcements, three South Australian startups have furthered their plans to support the international space industry.

All based in Adelaide, South Australia, the companies include Fleet Space Technologies, Inovor Technologies and Southern Launch.

EDINBURGH, Scotland, 16 June 2021 (SSLC PR) – In a groundbreaking initiative organised by the Scottish Space Leadership Council (SSLC), global space sector stakeholders have been joining forces to explore solutions to sustainability-focused challenges set by environmental groups, academia, businesses and the wider public.

An initial period of outreach led to an influx of written submissions that were reviewed by an independent judging panel. Challenges were then set for space industry representatives to address during online workshops running throughout May. Three broad themes were identified, with one calling for a holistic, internationally adoptable approach to measuring the true impact of the space sector on the environment. The second called for an exploration into developing an open library of space data to connect citizen science initiatives with environmental data. Finally, the sector was asked to identify ways to quantify, classify and assess the growing problem of low-orbiting space debris, to help protect the near-Earth space ecosystem.