Economy
November Space Council Meetings Could Shape Commercial Regulations
The National Space Council asked for comment on new commercial space systems and how the commercial space sector could be regulated during a pair of online meetings set for November. The council wants input from industry and the public. The move is part of a Biden Administration push to deal with issues including crowded orbits and the safety of space tourists.
U.S. Defense Strategy Document Pledges Commercial Space Protection
In a first-of-its-kind shift in stated strategy, the Biden Administration pledged, in a document that outlines Pentagon plans, to protect growing American commercial interests in space while advancing military space capabilities and international cooperation in orbit. Military space has returned to the spotlight in recent years after a slump that accompanied the end of the Cold War.
Nation in Review: Bahrain
The kingdom of Bahrain is the smallest country in the Middle East, measuring only 294 square miles with a population of 1.7 million people. The small nation is an ambitious emerging playerin the space sector.
Budget Gridlock Delays Spending on New U.S. Space Programs
Congressional gridlock delayed a 2023 spending plan for U.S. government space programs, which have made up about 12 percent of the global space economy in recent years. The delay stalled budget increases for NASA and the Pentagon topping $6 billion, but a stopgap measure keeps agencies operating at 2022 spending levels.
Quilty Analytics 3Q22 Quarterly Transactional Update:
The macro environment and public equity market conditions remained highly volatile during the third quarter, a quarter that saw the bellwether S&P 500 equity market index decline by 5% with heavy losses in late August and through most of September. Against this less-than-favorable backdrop, satellite and space mergers and acquisitions(M&A) and equity financing activity remained in line with the previous quarter.
Rivals Launch Military Satellites Amid U.S.-led Space Defense Drills
A flurry of military and intelligence satellite launches by rival powers this month came as the United States and two dozen partner nations wrapped up the largest global space defense wargame in history.
Russia launched what some leaders have described as a spy satellite for Iran and its own on-orbit snooping satellite Cosmos-2558, which is circling Earth in an orbit conspicuously close to a recently launched U.S. National Reconnaissance Office satellite, a Netherlands researcher confirmed.
Solving Space Junk Problem Could Net Federal Prize
A grand prize could be in the offing for inventors who come up with new methods to prevent orbiting debris or design tools that can clean up space junk, according to recommendations from the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Space Matters: Experts Call for More Governance in LEO
The Wild West regulatory environment in low Earth orbit was ranked as a top threat to space sustainability by a panel of experts convened for Space Symposium 365’s Space Matters webcast Thursday.
Clockwise from top left, panelists former Rep. Robert Walker, Carissa Christensen, former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, and Patricia Cooper.
ESA Sending Heroic, Fictional Sheep Aboard Artemis I
NASA says its Artemis I flight set to launch as soon as late August will be an uncrewed lunar fly-by.
The Paris-based European Space Agency would beg to differ. Shaun is leaving the happy confines of Mossy Bottom Farm to lead the flight around the Moon, an agency press release announced.
Quilty Analytics 2022 Q2 Quarterly Transactional Update
After a downshift in announced deal volumes in the first quarter of 2022, volumes in the second quarter remained well below those experienced in 2021. Merger and acquisition interest and activity has been reasonably resilient in the face of macroeconomic volatility, but public capital markets activity has been tepid, bordering on non-existent.