January 2023
Clearing space junk from orbit
... on Earth enabling connectivity even in remote places. This need for ubiquitous connectivity drives the development of large constellations of satellites for broadband internet and the Internet of Things. This trend has led to a more than tenfold...
April 2026
Robotics is the future of space labour
... mission, it costs US$130,000 an hour for an astronaut to do work in space. With the launch of new satellite mega-constellations and commercial mspace stations, there is now more demand for science in orbit than ever before, and...
October 2026
Can humanity outgrow its primitive mind before reaching the stars?
... ancestors raised their eyes to the night sky and imagined meaning among the stars. They navigated by constellations, built myths around celestial movements and sought answers in the silence of the cosmos. Today, after centuries...
March 2015
A boom and a (possible) bust in small spacecraft production
... decreasing, although in all fairness it should be noted that there hasn’t been a radical drop in the overall cost of constellation support due to the short active performance time of each spacecraft. Thirdly, a large amount of spacecraft could serve...
October 2019
Ground segment transformation - convergence of NewSpace and the cloud
... represents a material departure from the established norms and behaviours of the space industry. Generally, each satellite constellation builds a unique ground station network to serve the specific needs of its mission. The high cost of establishing...
August 2017
Space invaders and the usual suspects - disruptive trends in Earth observation
... massive use of high-performance commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies has already proved the feasibility of constellations of several tens of cubesats weighing around 5 kg and costing a few thousands of dollars per unit. But NewSpace is not...
