2023
As Global Satellite Data Expands, Companies Develop AI for Initial Analysis
While most people may think of ChatGPT or deep fake images when they hear “artificial intelligence”, AI methodologies are proving beneficial for a wide variety of applications, especially in data-heavy industries such as Earth observation.
India’s Lunar Landing Highlights Renewed Race to Moon
When Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the lunar south pole, India took center stage in a new Space Race to the Moon. In the coming years, China, Russia, Japan, India, and the U.S. all plan on missions to the Moon.
New Race to the Moon Geostrategic Issues Dwarf Former US-Soviet Rivalry
Until December 2013, when China’s Yutu rover rolled onto the lunar surface, the United States and Russia were smug in being the only countries to successfully land spacecraft on the Moon. That exclusive club was just blown open in August 2023 by the historic success of India’s Vikram lander reaching the Moon’s south pole.
Growing Orbital Dangers Drive U.S. ASAT Proposal, Strategic Questions
U.S. leaders have noted growing threats in space from satellites designed to manipulate, damage, destroy or even hijack orbital targets, ground-based lasers and creative hackers.
Scotland’s Bold Plans Seek to Rule European Space Markets
With expertise in small satellites and coastal launch facilities under construction, Scotland aims to capture nearly $5 billion of the global space economy by 2030. It’s a rapid transformation for a country within the United Kingdom that had virtually no space firms 20 years ago and now boasts more than 8,000 space workers.
Space Employment Speeds Back Up Despite U.S. Labor Market Slowdown
After a slowdown in hiring in the last half of 2022, U.S. space-related employment numbers through July 2023 are showing signs of recovery.
Space Policy, Monitoring Increasingly Crucial Amid Rise in UAP Reports
In 1952, former Director of Central Intelligence Walter Bedell Smith estimated the chances of UFOs posing a threat to national security to be one in 10,000, “but even that chance could not be taken.”
U.S. Space Firms Face Dilemma as Trade Student Numbers Sink
As the space industry works to mass-produce satellites and launch vehicles, space firms continue to struggle to acquire skilled labor.
OSIRIS-REx Delivers Asteroid Sample After Seven Years in Space
After more than a decade’s worth of planning, seven years of space flight, and 1 billion miles of travel, a sample from the asteroid Bennu has returned to Earth — but the work is only beginning.
ESA: satellite finds young trees better at consuming atmospheric carbon
In a discovery that upends conventional wisdom, the European Space Agency revealed a study Thursday that shows old-growth forests are outclassed by younger trees when it comes to capturing carbon from the atmosphere.