Latest news with #spaceinnovation
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Industry experts endorse Hong Kong's potential as commercial space hub
Experts at the Global Prosperity Summit 2025, held recently in Hong Kong, suggested the city could become a space innovation hub, capitalising on its role as a 'superconnector' to develop business opportunities with mainland China while leading a global consensus on aerospace regulations. Exchanging views at the summit, a panel of experts discussed 'The Promise of Space – Breakthroughs and Potential', highlighting the mainland's emerging space technologies – including the rise of the BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS) – which present significant opportunities for Hong Kong. The panel emphasised Hong Kong's ability to draw space investment firms, given the rise in private funding for space ventures and the demand for capital. One of the speakers, Adam Janikowski, founder and managing director of BDJ Capital, said: 'Hong Kong has a major advantage with its rule of law, and many other advantages. It has its location, its partnerships, its alliances.' He added that there were 'over 140 private commercial space companies active in China since 2020', and over the last four years, more than 15 trillion yuan (US$2.1 trillion) has been raised through a significant number of financing rounds. 'We need to establish new space programmes, and we need to leverage and combine our strengths as a superconnector. Hong Kong is [located] between the Greater Bay Area, between our trade alliances, and has this incredible advantage,' he said, stressing that there is a strong opportunity for the city to become a commercial space hub.
South China Morning Post
20-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Could space become Hong Kong's new frontier industry? Experts think so
Hong Kong should work with mainland Chinese authorities to turn the city into a space innovation hub to capitalise on its business opportunities, while also acting as a 'superconnector' for building a global consensus on aerospace regulations, experts have said at a global summit. Advertisement Experts made the suggestion at the Global Prosperity Summit on Tuesday, arguing that Hong Kong could take advantage of the massive opportunities arising from the mainland's rapidly growing BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS) and other space technologies. The home-grown system is the country's answer to the global positioning system (GPS) and other aspects of space development. The summit was co-organised by local think tank the Savantas Policy Institute, the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies and the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. Executive Council convenor Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who also chairs the think tank, said in her welcoming remarks at the summit that the event aimed to help the world recognise the unique role that Hong Kong played in 'bridging divides and reducing differences'. Advertisement She suggested that the city should strive to host more meetings involving international organisations, especially events that could facilitate agreements related to emerging sectors such as aviation.
Fast Company
19-05-2025
- Science
- Fast Company
What the wins and losses for 2025 lunar exploration mean for the future
Half a century after the Apollo astronauts left the last bootprints in lunar dust, the Moon has once again become a destination of fierce ambition and delicate engineering. This time, it's not just superpowers racing to plant flags, but also private companies, multinational partnerships and robotic scouts aiming to unlock the Moon's secrets and lay the groundwork for future human return. So far in 2025, lunar exploration has surged forward. Several notable missions have launched toward or landed on the Moon. Each has navigated the long journey through space and the even trickier descent to the Moon's surface or into orbit with varying degrees of success. Together, these missions reflect both the promise and difficulty of returning to the Moon in this new space race defined by innovation, competition and collaboration. As an aerospace engineer specializing in guidance, navigation and control technologies, I'm deeply interested in how each mission – whether successful or not – adds to scientists' collective understanding. These missions can help engineers learn to navigate the complexities of space, operate in hostile lunar environments and steadily advance toward a sustainable human presence on the Moon. Why is landing on the Moon so hard? Lunar exploration remains one of the most technically demanding frontiers in modern spaceflight. Choosing a landing site involves complex trade-offs between scientific interest, terrain safety and Sun exposure. The lunar south pole is an especially attractive area, as it could contain water in the form of ice in shadowed craters, a critical resource for future missions. Other sites may hold clues about volcanic activity on the Moon or the solar system's early history. Each mission trajectory must be calculated with precision to make sure the craft arrives and descends at the right time and place. Engineers must account for the Moon's constantly changing position in its orbit around Earth, the timing of launch windows and the gravitational forces acting on the spacecraft throughout its journey. They also need to carefully plan the spacecraft's path so that it arrives at the right angle and speed for a safe approach. Even small miscalculations early on can lead to major errors in landing location – or a missed opportunity entirely. Once on the surface, the landers need to survive extreme swings in temperature – from highs over 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 degrees Celsius) in daylight down to lows of -208 F (-133 C) at night – as well as dust, radiation and delayed communication with Earth. The spacecraft's power systems, heat control, landing legs and communication links must all function perfectly. Meanwhile, these landers must avoid hazardous terrain and rely on sunlight to power their instruments and recharge their batteries. These challenges help explain why many landers have crashed or experienced partial failures, even though the technology has come a long way since the Apollo era. Commercial companies face the same technical hurdles as government agencies but often with tighter budgets, smaller teams and less heritage hardware. Unlike government missions, which can draw on decades of institutional experience and infrastructure, many commercial lunar efforts are navigating these challenges for the first time. Successful landings and hard lessons for CLPS Several lunar missions launched this year belong to NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. CLPS is an initiative that contracts private companies to deliver science and technology payloads to the Moon. Its aim is to accelerate exploration while lowering costs and encouraging commercial innovation. The first Moon mission of 2025, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1, launched in January and successfully landed in early March. The lander survived the harsh lunar day and transmitted data for nearly two weeks before losing power during the freezing lunar night – a typical operational limit for most unheated lunar landers. Blue Ghost demonstrated how commercial landers can shoulder critical parts of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade. The second CLPS launch of the year, Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission, launched in late February. It targeted a scientifically intriguing site near the Moon's south pole region. The Nova-C lander, named Athena, touched down on March 6 close to the south pole. However, during the landing process, Athena tipped over. Since it landed on its side in a crater with uneven terrain, it couldn't deploy its solar panels to generate power, which ended the mission early. While Athena's tipped-over landing meant it couldn't do all the scientific explorations it had planned, the data it returned is still valuable for understanding how future landers can avoid similar fates on the rugged polar terrain. Not all lunar missions need to land. NASA's Lunar Trailblazer, a small lunar orbiter launched in February alongside IM-2, was intended to orbit the Moon and map the form, abundance and distribution of water in the form of ice, especially in shadowed craters near the poles. Shortly after launch, however, NASA lost contact with the spacecraft. Engineers suspect the spacecraft may have experienced a power issue, potentially leaving its batteries depleted. NASA is continuing recovery efforts, hoping that the spacecraft's solar panels may recharge in May and June. Ongoing and future missions Launched on the same day as the Blue Ghost mission in January, Japanese company ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2 (Resilience) is on its way to the Moon and has successfully entered lunar orbit. The lander carried out a successful flyby of the Moon on Feb. 15, with an expected landing in early June. Although launched at the same time, Resilience took a longer trajectory than Blue Ghost to save energy. This maneuver also allowed the spacecraft to collect bonus science observations while looping around the Moon. The mission, if successful, will advance Japan's commercial space sector and prove an important comeback for ispace after its first lunar lander crashed during its final descent in 2023. The rest of 2025 promises a busy lunar calendar. Intuitive Machines plans to launch IM-3 in late 2025 to test more advanced instruments and potentially deliver NASA scientific experiments to the Moon. The European Space Agency's Lunar Pathfinder will establish a dedicated lunar communications satellite, making it easier for future missions, especially those operating on the far side or poles, to stay in touch with Earth. Meanwhile, Astrobotic's Griffin Mission-1 is scheduled to deliver NASA's VIPER rover to the Moon's south pole, where it will directly search for ice beneath the surface. Together, these missions represent an increasingly international and commercial approach to lunar science and exploration.
