LUXEMBOURG, 21 June 2021 (Asteroid Foundation PR) – The Asteroid Foundation’s annual Asteroid Day LIVE programme returns in person Thursday 30 June 2022 at 11:00 CET [5 a.m. EDT/09:00 UTC]. After two years as a digital event, astronauts, experts and science communicators from across the world will again converge on Luxembourg to discuss the importance of asteroid research, missions, and advances in space-based technologies. The four-hour-long programme will vividly bring the solar system’s smallest worlds to life for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

Asteroid Day LIVE 2022 will be built around seven panel discussions that will tell the full story of asteroids; from the formation of the Solar System, 4.6 billion years ago, to the scientific work taking place today, and our future prospects as we begin to imagine ways to utilise the resources asteroids contain.

OXFORDSHIRE, UK (OrbAstro PR) — OrbAstro has today revealed two new space competitions for students and start-ups to get spacecraft payloads to orbit, Orbital Student and Orbital Start-Up. The company has dedicated some capacity onboard their satellite launching in December 2021 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 to the competition.

Students and start-ups will mature designs for their novel spacecraft payloads, assessed by an independent panel of space industry experts. A short-list of teams will have their payloads put through environmental testing, to ensure they can survive the violence of rocket launch and the space environment. The best teams left standing, two student teams and one start-up, will have their payloads integrated to the OrbAstro satellite and launched. Once in orbit, teams will have the opportunity to carry out satellite and payload operations. 

SAN FRANCISCO (Breakthrough Initiatives PR)  – Breakthrough Initiatives, the privately-funded space science programs founded by science and technology investor and philanthropist Yuri Milner, are funding a research study into the possibility of primitive life in the clouds of Venus. The study is inspired by the discovery, announced yesterday, of the gas phosphine, considered a potential biosignature, in the planet’s atmosphere.

President Donald Trump will chair the third public meeting of the National Space Council on Monday. The previous two sessions were chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, who heads up the council I haven ‘t been able to find a time or agenda for the meeting, but when it does go live the event will be shown on NASA TV (https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html) and the White House Live website (www.whitehouse.gov/live/). Although there […]

Asteroid Eros

Luxembourg will make an initial investment of 200 million euros ($227 million) to become the “Silicon Valley of space resources” under an initiative that will primarily benefit two American asteroid mining companies.

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Asteroid Eros

LUXEMBOURG CITY (Luxembourg Government PR) — The Luxembourg Government forges ahead with the SpaceResources.lu initiative by presenting an overall strategy to be implemented progressively for the exploration and commercial utilization of resources from Near Earth Objects (NEOs), such as asteroids. Amongst the key actions undertaken is the establishment of an appropriate legal and regulatory framework for space resource utilization activities to provide private companies and investors with a secure legal environment.

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Luxembourg Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy, Étienne Schneider with Pete Worden. (Credit: Luxembourg Government)

LUXEMBOURG CITY (Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy PR) — The Luxembourg Government today announced that Simon “Pete” Worden (Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret., PhD), Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, joins the government’s Advisory Board of the recently announced spaceresources.lu initiative. The initiative defines a framework for the exploration and commercial utilization of resources from Near Earth Objects (NEOs), such as asteroids.

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Schematic view of asteroid (25143) Itokawa. (Credit: ESO)

LUXEMBOURG CITY (Luxembourg Government PR) — The Luxembourg Government announced a series of measures to position Luxembourg as a European hub in the exploration and use of space resources. Amongst the key steps undertaken, as part of the spaceresources.lu initiative, will be the development of a legal and regulatory framework confirming certainty about the future ownership of minerals extracted in space from Near Earth Objects (NEO’s) such as asteroids.

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Eugene Tu (Credit: NASA)

WASHINGTON, DC (NASA PR) — NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Monday the selection of Dr. Eugene L. Tu as the next director of the agency’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, effective immediately.

Tu most recently served as the director of Exploration Technology at Ames, where he led four technology research and development divisions, including two of NASA’s critical infrastructure assets: the consolidated arc jet testing complex and the agency’s primary supercomputing facility.

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Pete Worden

NASA Ames Center Director Pete Worden has announced he is leaving the space agency at the end of March to pursue opportunities in the private sector. He was appointed Ames center director in May 2006 after retiring from a 29-year career in the U.S. Air Force.

Worden has been seen as a maverick within a relatively conservative space agency, pursuing innovative initiatives such as phonesats and synthetic biology while forging close ties with Silicon Valley companies such as Google. NASA Ames hosted an International Space University summer session; its research park is home to the Singularity University and Made in Space.
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