LONDON (Seraphim Capital PR) — Seraphim Capital, a specialist investment group focused on the Space sector, has appointed Jan Wörner, former Director General of the European Space Agency, as Senior Advisor and Member of the firm’s Advisory Board. Wörner has held a long and distinguished career in the Space sector. He served as the Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), the highest-ranking official of the ESA, for over […]

EDWARDS, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA is inviting commercial businesses, academic institutions, entrepreneurs, and other innovators to compete in a new challenge that will provide payload development funding and access to suborbital flight testing for innovative space technologies. The NASA TechLeap Prize aims to rapidly advance technologies for space exploration and Earth observation.

The current phase of NASA TechLeap Prize, Autonomous Observation Challenge No. 1, is looking for SmallSat observation technologies that can autonomously detect, locate, track, and collect data on transient events – both on Earth and beyond. These technologies could advance optical communications networks, aiding lunar exploration in detecting, tracking, and establishing line-of-sight communications with any lander, rover, or object on the Moon.

SWINDON, UK (UK Space Agency PR) — Science Minister Amanda Solloway has approved the appointment of Dr Paul Bate as CEO of the UK Space Agency, with a mission to continue the success of a sector that will play an increasingly vital role in the UK economy.

The new appointment underlines ambitions by the UK government to boost the commercial and scientific contribution of the £16.4 billion UK space industry, and ensure that innovation in space benefits everyone as we build back better.

Paul is currently Vice President, Commercial at Babylon Health, working with healthcare organisations in the NHS and across the world. Prior to Babylon, he was the Executive Director of Strategy and Intelligence at the Care Quality Commission.

PARIS (ESA PR) — EnVision will be ESA’s next Venus orbiter, providing a holistic view of the planet from its inner core to upper atmosphere to determine how and why Venus and Earth evolved so differently.

The mission was selected by ESA’s Science Programme Committee on 10 June as the fifth Medium-class mission in the Agency’s Cosmic Vision plan, targeting a launch in the early 2030s.

Bidding for a seat on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle with Jeff Bezos ended on Thursday with the top bid at $4.8 million. The auction, which began on May 5, will conclude on Saturday, June 12 with a live bidding session that will be streamed at www.blueorigin.com. The session will start at 1 p.m. EDT/17:00 UTC. The winner will join Bezos and his brother Mark on New Shepard’s first […]

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — As NASA continues plans for multiple commercial deliveries to the Moon’s surface per year, the agency has selected three new scientific investigation payload suites to advance understanding of Earth’s nearest neighbor. Two of the payload suites will land on the far side of the Moon, a first for NASA. All three investigations will receive rides to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative, part of the agency’s Artemis approach.

The payloads mark the agency’s first selections from its Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM) call for proposals.

WINSTON-SALEM, NC (NASA PR) — Two teams of scientists from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, have won first and second place in NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge. The prize competition aims to accelerate tissue engineering innovations to benefit people on Earth today and space explorers in the future.

DURANGO, Colo. (Agile Space Industries PR) – Agile Space Industries, an aerospace propulsion innovator founded in 2009, has acquired additive manufacturing (AM) leader, Tronix3D, to continue their mission of innovating in-space propulsion systems. The newly integrated entity will be known as Agile Additive and will extend the innovations of Tronix3D in printing exotic alloys for complex, high-performance aerospace components to transform how space companies execute their most demanding missions.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Glavkosmos is offering space tourists the option of performing spacewalks from the International Space Station (ISS) and stays of up to 30 days aboard the orbital laboratory. They can even purchase the Soyuz space capsule that took them to and from the station.

The company, which is part of Roscosmos, recently upgraded its website to provide details of what paying customers can do when they book a trip to the station. The information is available in Russian and English.

• PickNik Robotics is developing an easy-to-use supervised autonomy solution to command remote, complex robots.
• The commercially available version is called MoveIt Studio, with an initial release slated for Summer 2021.
• MoveIt Studio expands the problem-solving capabilities of traditional robot teleoperation.

BOULDER, CO, June 8th, 2021 (PickNik Robotics PR) – PickNik Robotics announced on June 8th that it has been awarded a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to develop its technology for advanced planning capabilities for robots in microgravity environments.

Hi everyone. I want to thank all of you for being loyal readers of Parabolic Arc. Over the years, I’ve striven to bring you the latest in space news, commentary and analysis. It’s been a great pleasure to do so and to interact with you on this website and on Twitter. Now, I’m asking your help. I’m launching a fund-raising appeal so I can continue to maintain Parabolic Arc. I’m […]

MOU Advances Plan for Sustained Operations with the UK’s Horizontal Launch
Spaceport at Cornwall Airport Newquay

Follows Completion of UK Space Agency Funded Concept of Operations
For Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser

SPARKS, Nev. and CORNWALL, England, June 9, 2021 (Sierra Space PR) — Sierra Space, the new commercial space subsidiary of global aerospace and national security leader Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Spaceport Cornwall, the UK’s horizontal launch Spaceport at Cornwall Airport Newquay in South West England.