Middle East Space Roundup: 26 February to 4 March 2023
A summary of all the space news in the Greater Middle East over the past week
The following are the major space developments in the Greater Middle East region tracked by Middle East Space Monitor over the past week:
26 February 2023
The word on the street is that the China Great Wall Industry Corporation, China’s largest manufacturer of space launch vehicles, satellites, and spacecraft, has opened an office in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
27 February 2023
UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi and his crew mates had their launch to the International Space Station scrubbed due to a technical issue with their SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle at just over two minutes in the countdown to launch. SpaceX and the U.S. national space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), announced that the next launch attempt will take place on Thursday, 2 March 2023.
Bloomberg Business publishes an interesting report about the demise of the Russian space programme and China’s growing space and lunar ambitions. The report notes that China appears to have distanced itself from Russia as a partner for its International Lunar Research Station and is instead courting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, such as the UAE, to become potential partners in its moon programme as well as its Tiangong space station.
Israeli startup BeetleSat announces that it has successfully deployed its flexible, unfolding antenna from its nine kilogram nanosatellite that was launched on 2 January 2023. The parabolic antenna is 60 centimetres in diameter and is capable of transferring two gigabytes per second in data, compared to 20 megabytes per second in data transfers on other nanosatellites. BeetleSat plans to launch a 294 nanosatellite constellation in low-Earth orbit to provide broadband internet and satellite direct-to-device (D2D) cellular services. BeetleSat is supported by the Israel Space Agency.
28 February 2023
Yahsat, the UAE’s premier satellite communications and services company, announced strong 2022 financial results. The SATCOM provider reported a six percent increase in 2022 revenues to $433 million, while its net income fell to $65,940,000 from $69,950,000 in 2021. Yahsat’s board of directors recommended a $107 million dividend payout based on these results. Yahsat Group Chairman Mussabeh Al Kaabi said, “In a year of continued transformational change for the satellite industry and against a backdrop of global economic headwinds and tighter financial conditions, the Group continues to deliver impressive top-line revenue growth, a superior margin and healthy cashflows, positioning it to sustain and grow its dividend and invest in organic and inorganic growth opportunities. The true test of a company's performance, however, is its ability to deliver on its promises, and I'm pleased to see Yahsat’s management team firmly meet or exceed the financial targets set out in our first full year as a publicly traded company following the successful IPO in July 2021.” Yahsat’s Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Cole, says that the company is expected to increase its revenue in 2023 to anywhere between $435 million to $455 million, with the aim of achieving at least a five percent increase in revenue over the 202 results.
1 March 2023
Israel’s State Comptroller, Matanyahu Englman, unveils a report that takes the Israel Defense Forces and Ministry of Defense to task for allowing Israeli space and satellite capabilities and industrial base to atrophy over the past 15 years. The Israeli defence establishment was supposed to have spent approximately $85 million a year on space and satellite capabilities since 2008, but instead only spends on average anywhere between $16 million to $22 million a year. Moreover, Englman also reports that the IDF and MoD have still not formulated a unified space policy, and lack a comprehensive legal and national security framework for military space activities. The report also says that the IDF and MoD have neglected the relationship with Israel’s space and satellite industry, leaving the industrial base often struggling to maintain its technological edge. The MoD accepted the findings of Englman’s report but said that its military space shortcomings are a result of insufficient funding from the central government. The report has obvious implications for the Israeli air force’s plans to develop a military space administration.
UAE’s Yahsat says that it will exercise its contract option with Airbus Defence and Space for an additional L-band communications satellite. Yahsat subsidiary Thuraya will take delivery of its Thuraya-4 Next Generation Satellite (NGS) in 2024, and with the contract option, will eventually take delivery of Thuraya-5 NGS at a date that has yet to be determined. The Thuraya-4 NGS satellite is instrumental to Yahsat’s plans to provide satellite-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) services.
Egypt’s commercial satellite communications provider NileSat has dropped Iran’s Press TV channel from its broadcasting services across the Middle East and North Africa region. Press TV is backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and is accused of broadcasting anti-Semitic propaganda on behalf of the Iranian regime. To date, Press TV broadcasts have been banned in Europe and the United Kingdom and has been dropped by other satellite broadcast operators such as SES, Eutelsat, and AsiaSat.
The UAE’s Peaceful Nuclear Energy Programme, operator of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the Abu Dhabi Emirate, hints that it is looking at nuclear propulsion and energy for future space exploration missions.
Tactical Report claims that Egypt and Greece are in discussions to jointly develop a military reconnaissance satellite. According to its sources, Egyptian company Benha Electronics is in cooperation and technology transfer talks with Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI) to facilitate joint production. Tactical Report claims that the two companies and governments intend to jointly build and operate a real-time high-resolution Earth observation satellite. It is understood that the satellite will incorporate Europe’s Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology.
2 March 2023
Following the scrubbed launch on Monday, 27 February 2023, UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi and his three crew mates were successfully launched to the International Space Station in a SpaceX Dragon capsule on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The almost flawless launch went without a hitch and less than 25-hours later the Dragon capsule successfully docked with the ISS. Al Neyadi is the fourth Arab astronaut and the first to undertake a long-duration space mission of six months.
Dr. Ali bin Amer Al Shedhani, Undersecretary at Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology (MTCIT), says that the Sultanate will send astronauts to the International Space Station at a future date “whenever investment opportunities are appropriate.” Dr. Al Shedhani’s comments were made during a radio interview on the morning of the launch of UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi to the ISS.
3 March 2023
Following the successful launch of UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi, the Director General of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), Salem Al Marri, says that the UAE will launch astronauts every three to five years and that the UAE is here to stay in human spaceflight and space exploration activities.
4 March 2023
In late breaking news, it appears that the Space Component of U.S. Central Command (SPACECENT), hosted the CENTCOM Theater Space Forum at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on 15-17 February 2023. The forum, hosted by Colonel Christopher Putman, U.S. Space Force, Commander of SPACECENT, was attended by over 100 space officers and officials from U.S. Space Force, U.S. Space Command, U.S. European Command, U.S Inso-Pacific Command, U.S. Southern Command, U.K. Space Command, and military officials from Australia and Canada. According to a U.S Space Force press release, “[T]he forum included presentations and discussions focused on current space capability, threat briefs, theater command and control processes and the coalition approach to theater space integration.”
Be sure to catch up with space activities in the region in the next edition of Middle East Space Monitor’s space roundup!