Plus: What would signing the Artemis Accords mean for Turkey?
| By Dan Robitzski
Welcome back to our weekly newsletter highlighting the opinions and perspectives of the SpaceNews community.
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Last year, the European Commission unveiled the EU Space Act, an attempt to organize and regulate European space activities in a streamlined manner for the sake of boosting European safety, resilience and sustainability. Needless to say, commercial firms around the world had notes. Here writing to both applaud the push toward consistency in European regulation and to offer suggestions to make the EU Space Act more workable is space policy expert Mario Neri, director of Spectrum Strategy and Innovation at Telesat. He penned a commentary to argue that some parts of the act were unrealistic — and to offer a path forward.
Neri makes three main points: The timeline offered by the Space Act for new satellite design requirements is too short for how involved the process will take; that the European Commission should embrace global standards rather than impose its own for the sake of broader harmonization; and that the Space Act's efforts to curb space debris should focus on coordinating efforts among operators rather than imposing new technical requirements on spacecraft.
You can see Neri's full argument here. | | | | |
Turkey's role in space has been growing as of late and, as a nation that hasn't signed the Artemis Accords but that collaborates with other space programs around the world, the country finds itself in a unique position.
Writing to break down what joining the Artemis Accords would mean for Turkey's space ambitions and the broader space community is independent space policy consultant Elif Yüksel, who argued that becoming an Artemis signatory would give Turkey a bigger seat at the table during a crucial time when the norms of space activities are being debated and contested among rivaling space coalitions.
Yüksel described the domestic changes to space policy that Turkey would need to make to align itself with the Artemis Accords, but also makes the point that joining one group wouldn't necessarily prohibit Turkey from strengthening its relationship with China and its International Lunar Research Station coalition, offering the country a rare opportunity to serve as a conduit for strengthened global bonds.
You can read the full article here. | | | | | |  | | A dust plume stretches over the eastern Mediterranean, shrouding parts of Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. Credit: NASA | | | |
The Earth observation industry is awash with both supply and demand for imagery and data that could help security, agriculture, environmental and other firms. And yet the business model for the industry is so mismatched that it needs a full overhaul if Earth observation is going to scale to its fullest potential, argued EarthDaily Chief Revenue Officer Eric von Eckartsberg. In his recent commentary, he broke down how the early Earth observation industry was shaped around military needs for abundant data and, because militaries and governments would take in data then customize and interpret it as needed, the industry ended up with high volumes of data that's not as readily usable now that commercial companies are entering the market as customers.
"If Earth observation is going to scale commercially, the industry needs to change how supply is designed and evaluated, with a clear focus on how data can be integrated into institutional decision-making. That responsibility does not sit with any single actor, but with the EO ecosystem as a whole," he wrote.
You can see the full article here.
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