WASHINGTON — Masten Space Systems is pushing back the launch of its first lunar lander mission by nearly a year, the latest in a series of delays by companies with NASA contracts to transport payloads to the moon.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force later this year will begin to take over the operation of 11 Navy narrowband communications satellites. It also will absorb Army units that currently operate military communications payloads, a Space Force official said June 23.

TAMPA, Fla. — Swiss startup Astrocast is considering becoming a public company to expand its constellation for connecting internet of things (IoT) devices.

The venture has hired European investment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co to explore selling a 30-40% stake on the Euronext Growth stock exchange.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) welcomed its newest member, Microsoft, June 23 with an announcement highlighting the tech giant’s cybersecurity expertise.

“Space cybersecurity is relatively unknown territory because we’re approaching and doing some things for the first time, fortunately through Space ISAC we have the opportunity to build a foundation for protection from a knowledge pool with deep security expertise,” Frank Backes, chair of the Space ISAC board of directors and Kratos Space Federal senior vice president, said in a statement.

Microsoft is staking its claim on the space sector.

In the last year alone, the tech giant unveiled Azure Orbital, a service to move data from satellites into the cloud, and mobile cloud computing data centers for SpaceX’s Starlink constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) and SES’ O3b medium Earth orbit (MEO) constellations.

SAN FRANCISCO – Iceye is expanding to serve the Japanese market with the support of Makoto Higashi, the former Japan Space Imaging Corp. CEO and president, who will serve as Iceye’s general manager in Japan.

Within a year, Iceye plans to open an office in Tokyo and begin serving Japanese government and commercial customers with a 10-person staff, the company said in a June 23 news release.

WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency and European Union said the signing of a long-delayed partnership agreement heralded the start of a new and more cooperative relationship.

In a ceremony June 22 in Brussels, officials with the European Commission and ESA signed the Financial Framework Partnership Agreement (FFPA), a document that governs how the two organizations will work together in programs such as the Copernicus series of Earth observation satellites and Galileo navigation satellites.