by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

On Christmas Day 2021, an European Ariane 5 rocket roared off its launch pad in French Guiana with the most expensive payload the booster had ever carried, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope. The launcher performed perfectly, sending the most powerful space telescope on a journey to its final destination 1.5 million km (900 million miles) from Earth. The launch was so accurate that Webb should have sufficient propellant to perform science operations for much longer than its planned 10-year lifetime.

There was a collective sigh of relief among the European, American and Canadian scientists and engineers involved in the long-delayed program. It was a superb Christmas gift to a world suffering through the second year of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

• Contract signed with EUSPA to develop the next version of EGNOS
• New milestone in the Galileo program to improve positioning services for 3.3 billion users

CANNES, France, June 22, 2022 (Thales Alenia Space PR) – Thales Alenia Space, joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has signed a new contract with the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) to develop, qualify and deploy the new European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) version. Thales Alenia Space has also just reached a new milestone in the Galileo program with the integration of a new satellite into Galileo’s Ground Mission Segment (GMS) which will improve positioning service for 3.3 billion users.

• Team comprising Inmarsat, Goonhilly, GMVNSL demonstrates platform for future sovereign UK Position, Navigation and Timing capability
• UK not part of Galileo satnav system, cannot use European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) safety of life (SOL) services since leaving European Union

LONDON (Inmarsat PR) — An Inmarsat-led team of companies in the UK, building on national expertise and prior experience within the group, has begun broadcasting a satellite navigation signal as part of a programme to explore the creation of a sovereign national capability in resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) for the aviation and maritime sectors. The signal, being broadcast in coordination with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union Space Programme Agency (EUSPA), is now stable and operational, enabling on-going testing and validation by industry, regulators, and users.

Xona has completed environmental testing for their upcoming demo mission, a significant step towards realizing the first high-performance commercial navigation system. 

SAN MATEO, Calif., May 10, 2022 (Xona Space Systems PR) — Xona Space Systems, the aerospace startup developing a precision navigation and timing system in low Earth orbit, today announced that their first in-space demonstrator has been delivered to Spaceflight Inc. for final integration after successfully completing testing and is scheduled for launch on SpaceX’s Transporter 5 in May. Xona is building the first ever independent high-performance satellite navigation and timing system designed to meet the needs of intelligent systems.

Russia is suspending cooperation with Arianespace on the launch of Soyuz rockets from Europe’s Guiana Space Center and pulling its personnel from the South American spaceport over European Union (EU) sanctions imposed on the nation for the nation’s invasion of Ukraine. Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin tweeted: (Translated from Russian)

In response to EU sanctions against our enterprises, Roscosmos is suspending cooperation with European partners in organizing space launches from the Kourou cosmodrome and withdrawing its technical personnel, including the consolidated launch crew, from French Guiana.

CANNES, France, February 7, 2022 (Thales Alenia Space PR) – Thales Alenia Space, joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%) announced today that it has been awarded a contract by the French Space Agency CNES to develop a DFMC (Dual Frequency Multi Constellations) SBAS prototype in the frame of the next generation of SBAS, like EGNOS, the European navigation satellite system.

Speech by EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton at the 14th EU Space Conference

“Check against delivery”

Dear Ministers and Member State representatives,
Chère Sophie Wilmès,
Honourable Members of the European Parliament,
Dear friends from the space sector,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to open this European Space Conference. It is good to see you all in this room this morning.

Europe is a space power. It has the necessary expertise, industrial capacity, start-ups and assets to weigh in on the global stage. But there is no time for complacency.

The space sector is undergoing a massive transformation. 

On the one hand, the booming of private operators changes the business model of space, combining both large and small industry, space and digital ecosystems. This is a major opportunity for Europe. We need to unleash this potential.

PRAGUE (EUSPA PR) — The European Commission, the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the European Investment Fund (EIF) committed to multiplying the benefits of space technology to businesses. This initiative implies attracting more private investment funds, running capacity building activities, sharing expertise, organizing matchmaking, and promoting the markets. CASSINI is central to this endeavour. DG DEFIS Director-General Timo Pesonen, EUSPA Executive Director, […]

• ESA and EUSPA have confirmed that Arianespace will launch eight additional Galileo satellites.
• Arianespace will launch the first two satellites in 2022, leading to the Full Operational Capability of Galileo open service. Then, three successive launches on Ariane 62 in 2023, 2024 and 2025, will finalize the launch of the first generation of Galileo satellites and will increase the constellation resilience.
• These will be the 13^th to 16^th Galileo missions by Arianespace, which has orbited all satellites in the constellation.

Évry-Courcouronnes, France, January 6, 2022 (Arianespace PR) — The European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) has chosen Arianespace to launch four new Galileo satellites for Europe’s own satellite navigation system. With this order, EUSPA takes over the role of placing launch services contracts for Galileo from ESA, which acted so far in the name and on behalf of the European Commission and will continue to be the technical authority for these launches.

KOUROU, French Guiana (Roscosmos PR) — In accordance with the flight program, two new European Galileo FOC M9 satellites have successfully separated from the Fregat upper stage. Navigation spacecraft are in target orbit and are taken over by the customer. The launch vehicles of the State Corporation Roscosmos – the Soyuz-ST-B launch vehicle and the Fregat upper stage – worked without comment.