Artist’s rendition of a satellite – 3dsculptor/123RF Stock Photo
At last week’s European Space Agency (ESA) member states meeting, in the Portuguese coastal city of Matosinhos, a new vision for space activity in Europe was agreed in response to the feeling that the continent is falling behind China and America.
The vision, known as the Matosinhos Manifesto, identifies three areas that Europe will focus on:
- Space for a Green Future – Projects to understand the current state of the planet and help get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
- Rapid and Resilient Crisis Response – Applications to support nations to respond more effectively and faster to crisis situations.
- Protection of Space Assets – Systems to safeguard European astronauts and satellites from interference, such as last week’s Russian missile test.
Interestingly, the vision also has two inspirational goals:
- Europe to launch its own astronauts, and
- Mission to collect ice samples from the outer planets.
It was acknowledged that this vision will take time and a significant increase in ESA’s funding to be achieved. The ESA Budget is due to be discussed at the next ministerial council meeting in twelve months, although it will also be on the agenda at the informal European space summit being held next February in Toulouse, France.
Despite the UK Government’s acknowledgement that ESA and the European Union are separate entities, the issues surrounding Galileo and Copernicus – which are still unresolved – means that the organisations are often conflated. The Government’s response to an increased funding request is impossible to know.
In terms of new Earth Observation (EO) satellite launches, Thursday 18th November saw the Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle put two BlackSky EO satellites into orbit from a launch site on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. BlackSky 10 and 11 are the second generation of the BlackSky Pathfinder satellites, which can image in four bands and panchromatic mode, and have a ground resolution of 0.9 – 1.1 metres. These microsatellites can provide up to 1,000 images per day and have an expected lifespan of three years. BlackSky hopes to have a 30 strong constellation in place within the next four years, although it had a setback earlier this year when a launch in May failed to put two satellites into orbit.
The second EO launch occurred a couple of days later, when China’s Gaofen 11-3 was successfully put into a sun-synchronous orbit by the Long March 4B rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The formal capabilities of Gaofen 11 satellites have never been released, but it is believed to be a very high resolution optical satellite with a spatial resolution of approximately 10 centimetres according to an article published by the Chinese Society for Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography in November 2020. It is the third satellite of its type to be launched following Gaofen 11-1 in July 2016, an Gaofen 11-2 fourteen months ago and the three are part of the China High-definition Earth Observation System (CHEOS).
Finally, our blog last week discussed the issue of space debris and the dangers of potential collisions. However, these dangers aren’t restricted solely to the Earth. It was recently reported that an evasive manoeuvre was conducted around the moon when it appeared that the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were predicted to get to within 100 metres of each other. NASA and ISRO discussed the issue and agreed that action was required to avoid a collision, and as per the agreement between the agencies the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter was moved away on the 18th October.
As usual, there is a lot happening within the space and EO industries.
