Space

• [New] NASA's DART mission, scheduled for 2022, will involve sending a spacecraft to an asteroid called Didymos and using it to alter the path of Dimorphos, one of its moons.
• [New] The Space and Missile Systems Center awarded three contracts in 2020 to develop prototypes for the Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications system, with the goal to deploy a new system by 2032.
• [New] The Crew-1 mission scheduled to launch this weekend will be the first official crew mission launched from US soil in nearly a decade.
• [New] To meet anticipated population growth, London needs to deliver approximately 52,000 new homes every year, along with commercial and industrial space to accommodate 1.3 million new jobs by 2041, in line with the new London Plan.
• [New] China has launched two prototype habitat modules in the last decade and plans to start building a full space station in the next year or two.
• [New] The EU has expressed its ambition to lead the global fight against climate change and make Europe the first climate-neutral continent on the planet by 2050.
• [New] Company officials, including SpaceX founder Elon Musk, say they aim to have the Starship ready for an orbital test flight before the end of 2021, followed by numerous missions to launch satellites, test out in-orbit refueling, and eventually target cargo and crew expeditions to the moon and Mars.
• [New] The British-led mission to test techniques to clear up space junk has demonstrated a harpoon in orbit.
• Four main priorities recently listed on Biden's transition website do not include a space directive, leading some to believe that NASA may turn its focus towards climate change, not returning humans to the Moon by 2024, under Biden.
• There's still time for more M&A activity before the close of the year, and the tech space will likely see more early next year, around CES (which is all digital in 2021).
• Requirements for UK office space will undergo a significant shift over the next year, with fewer workers needing a full-time desk.
• All but the Russian space agency plan to participate in the NASA-led Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface by 2024, construct a mini-space station in lunar orbit, and eventually build out a lasting human presence at the moon before sending the first humans to Mars.
• Investing in new technology, reimagining how courthouse space is used and adopting best practices from leading jurisdictions around the world will provide the people of Ontario with a modern experience when they need to interact with the justice system.
• NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, will create the first water resource maps of the moon for future human space exploration once it lands on the lunar surface in 2022.
• NATO will set up a new space command center in Germany aimed at countering threats to satellite infrastructure in orbit.
• Satellite data published by the National Institute for Space Research has shown an increase of 85% this year in fires across Brazil, most of them in the Amazon region.
• Launching satellites that offer broadband internet service will help to drive down the cost of data, just as demand for data explodes.
• Metal asteroids are relatively rare in the solar system, and scientists believe Psyche could offer a unique opportunity to see inside a planet.
• Connecting all the dots, the space tourism space is going to be huge by the end of the decade, and Virgin Galactic projects as the one of the leaders in that huge space.
• The lunar network will be part of the U.S. space agency's efforts to return humans to the moon by 2024 and build long-term settlements there under its Artemis program.
• The space agency must quickly develop new technologies for living and working on the moon if it wants to realise its goal to have astronauts working at a lunar base by 2028.
• SpaceX will fly space tourists to the moon in 2023 via another Starship mission while Musk's company was also picked up by NASA as among the three commercial teams to develop moon landers for its Artemis program.
• BepiColombo will make its first flyby of Mercury next October and enter orbit around the planet in late 2025.

Last updated: 22 November 2020