Tag Archives: Geopolitics

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence gave a remarkable “Kennedy” style speech on 26 March 2019 in Huntsville, Alabama, where he stated that the United States will put Americans on the Moon again - in as soon as five years. China demonstrated, with Chang'e 4, their capability to land on the far side of the Moon. Israeli NGO SpaceIL’s Beresheet spacecraft, though ultimately unsuccessful in its soft landing, did reach the Moon’s surface on 11 April 2019. This has all happened without Europe. SpaceWatch.Global Chairman, Dr. John B. Sheldon, shares his thoughts on Europe's ability to carry out Moonshots in the 21st century.

"If at first you don’t succeed, you try again," said newly reelected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the Beresheet (Hebrew for Genesis) lunar lander failed to make a soft landing on the Moon's surface on 11 April 2019.

Following its 27 March 2019 direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) missile test that destroyed a target satellite in low-Earth orbit (LEO), the head of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) – G. Satheesh Reddy – has outlined to Indian media his organisation's counterspace technology ambitions for the coming years.

Air Chiefs and senior space officials from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States held a meeting at Headquarters Air Force Space Command to discuss the future of the Combined Space Operations (CSpO) initiative on 10 April 2019.

The impending separation of the United Kingdom from the European Union (or “Brexit”) will have a seismic effect upon British society and commerce, and the growing British space sector will be no exception.

Pakistan’s space agency, the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), is believed to be in talks with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on developing an agenda for possible space cooperation, according to a senior SUPARCO official quoted in the UAE newspaper Khaleej Times.

By Dr. Bleddyn Bowen SpaceWatch.Global is delighted to welcome Bleddyn Bowen as its latest columnist. Bleddyn will be contributing his column every quarter.

By Nandini Sarma - In many parts of the world, space technology is being used to improve people’s lives. Apart from their uses for everyday services like weather forecasting, long-distance communications, and GPS systems, the manifold applications of space technology assist in many other ways.

The Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC) hosted a Combined Space Operation Coalition Summit with more than 120 defence personnel from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States at Vandenberg AFB, California, 19-22 February 2019.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Dan Coats, along with the heads of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), gave testimony to the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence about the Office of the DNI's latest Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community on 29 January 2019