Watch the replay of our Q&A with the media to learn about the outcomes of the 310th session of the ESA Council. Updates are provided on the ambitious package presented by ESA for the 22/23 November ESA Ministerial Meeting in Paris, but also on the further expansion of ESA memberships, the future of ExoMars, Space Transportation and the overall, delicate economic situation.

ESA’s Navigation Directorate is planning a new satellite whose results will enable the generation of an updated global model of Earth – the International Terrestrial Reference Frame, employed for everything from land surveying to measuring sea level rise – with an accuracy down to 1 mm, while tracking ground motion of just 0.1 mm per year. This improvement, at a stroke, will have a major impact in multiple navigation and Earth science applications, including enhancing the precision of the Galileo navigation system. This mission, called GENESIS, is being proposed to ESA’s Council Meeting at Ministerial Level next

U.S. Space Systems Command officials earlier this month gave an unclassified briefing to Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos on the power competition taking place in the space domain.

The post Space Force briefing on military space race catches Jeff Bezos’ attention appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceX started accepting preorders Tuesday from high-flying private jet owners willing to pay a hefty price to receive high-speed Starlink services in the air.

The post Starlink taking preorders for high-speed private jet broadband service appeared first on SpaceNews.

Ariane 6, the new heavy-lift launch system being developed by the European Space Agency, will make its inaugural flight as soon as the fourth quarter of 2023. Briefing media gathered at ESA’s Paris Bertrand headquarters on 19 October, Director General Joseph Aschbacher said sufficient progress had been made over the past several months to anticipate a Q4 2023 first flight, pending the realization of three key milestones before April next year.

Press briefing on Ariane 6 progress at ESA Bertrand HQ, 19 October 2022: (l-r at front) Stéphane Israël (Arianespace Chief Executive), André-Hubert Roussel (ArianeGroup Chief Executive), Philippe Baptiste (CNES Chairman and Chief Executive), Joseph Aschbacher (ESA Director General), Daniel Neuenschwander (ESA Director of Space Transportation Systems)

The European Space Agency has again delayed the first flight of Europe’s Ariane 6 launch vehicle, this time to late 2023, as the new vehicle makes slow progress to the launch pad.

The post Ariane 6 first launch slips to late 2023 appeared first on SpaceNews.

The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of colour in the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view. The pillars look like arches and spires rising out of a desert landscape, but are filled with semi-transparent gas and dust, and ever changing. This is a region where young stars are forming – or have barely burst from their dusty cocoons as they continue to form.

Protostars are the scene-stealers in this Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image. These are the bright red orbs that sometimes appear with eight diffraction spikes. When knots with sufficient mass form