Almost 50 years to the day, it was December 7, 1972, that NASA’s Apollo 17 mission launched on the last human mission to the Moon, NASA and its international partners, launched for the first time the rocket that will take humans back to the Moon.

In the competition between prime contractor MDA and the much smaller and less known Bolton based Canadensys Aerospace, the underdog won.

Toronto’s Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) today announced another contract with Virginia based HawkEye 360 that will see SFL design, assemble, and integrate three microsatellites, and provide technical integration support for another 12 satellites.

In this episode of the Space Economy podcast we a have Future In-Space Operations Q&A from Sept. 14 on the US ISAM National Strategy which was released by the White House in April of this year. ISAM being the acronym for In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing.

GHGSat has launched SPECTRA, a free version of its emissions platform. SPECTRA builds on and replaces the free PULSE service it launched in 2020. The move comes ahead of United Nations climate change conference, COP 27.

The first Space Bound conference organized by the fledgling Space Canada industry group was an opportunity for the industry to come together, small and large, and see if they could host a meaningful event.

Edmonton based Earth observation startup Wyvern announced today that they had raised a seed round of US$7M of funding led by Uncork Capital. This brings Wyvern’s financing to date to approximately $15M.

With two Canadian payloads onboard, the ispace HAKUTO-R Mission 1 (M1) lunar lander has been shipped to Cape Canaveral, Florida for a November 22 launch date.

Montreal’s NorthStar Earth & Space, a commercial space-based situational awareness (SSA) startup, has announced who their launch provider will be for their first three satellites. The three 16U microsatellites are scheduled for launch in mid-2023 and will reach low Earth orbit with launch services provider Virgin Orbit. If all goes well, Virgin Orbit could be well placed to launch an additional 21 NorthStar satellites.

In this episode of the Space Economy podcast our special guest is Clark Lindsey, the lead analyst of a new 161 page report from NewSpace Global called Cislunar Market Opportunities, In-Space Business within the Earth-Moon System.