#Spacenews, #Startup #GuardianSat gets research grant for #satellite self-defense technology.
The company developed a system to “detect orbital debris, track potential collision threats, and autonomously adjust the satellite’s course to prevent accidents.”
#WASHINGTON — The startup GuardianSat announced Oct. 12 it won a grant from the National Science Foundation’s America’s Seed Fund to advance the company’s technology designed to protect satellites from collisions with debris objects in space.

#GuardianSat, based in Delaware, won a Small #Business Technology Transfer Phase 1 research contract worth about $273,000. In addition the company will get technical support from the Aerospace Corp. America’s Seed Fund invests up to $200 million a year in promising startups.

The company developed a debris-avoidance system for satellites, based on technology patented by one of its founders, Robert Briskman, who is a co-founder of Sirius XM #satellite radio.

#spacenews, #PARIS — Launched atop a #SpaceX #Falcon 9 #rocket from Cape Canaveral on July 1, the European Space Agency’s 2-ton Euclid space observatory is intended to scrutinize the universe in search of answers to the question of how undetectable dark matter and dark energy have been shaping the universe for billions of years.

It took a month for #Euclid to arrive at the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point, a gravitationally stable spot 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth in the direction opposite the sun. Once there, the Thales Alenia Space-built spacecraft was expected to undergo a two-month commissioning phase before beginning science operations.

However, problems were detected during instrument-performance verification that, if unresolved, could prevent the telescope from providing the highest-resolution images of the deep universe in all conditions.

#Spacenews, #HELSINKI — #Azerbaijan signed up to China’s International Lunar Research Station project Tuesday, on the sidelines of a major international space conference.

Li Guoping, chief engineer of the #China National Space Administration (CNSA) and Samaddin Asadov, chairman of the Board of Azercosmos, Azerbaijan’s space agency, signed a joint statement on cooperation on the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) Oct. 3 during the 74th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), hosted by #Azerbaijan, in the capital Baku. #CNSA announced the agreement Oct. 8 via a statement on its webpages.

#BAKU, Azerbaijan — A working group of nations signed up to the Artemis Accords aim to increase transparency and safety of civil lunar exploration missions.

The second agency meeting of #Artemis Accords signatories concluded on the sidelines of the 74th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in #Baku, Oct. 3. The meetings continued efforts to establish principles for safe and sustainable space exploration held for the first time at the 73rd IAC in Paris last year.

Representatives from three co-chairing nations presented findings from work groups conducted over the last year immediately after the meetings.