Former Keller Group chief executive Michael Speakman has died, with the ground engineering contractor announcing his death on 9 April following his passing last week. Speakman led Keller, one of the world’s largest specialist geotechnical contractors with operations across piling, ground improvement and grouting, through a period of major infrastructure delivery in transport, energy and urban development. His death removes a senior industry figure with deep experience in large-diameter piling, complex ground stabilisation and international project delivery.

Strabag UK has agreed to acquire Van Elle Holdings, one of the UK’s largest specialist geotechnical contractors, in a deal valuing the business at £58.8M. The takeover brings Van Elle’s piling, ground improvement and rail geotechnics capability into the Austrian Strabag Group’s UK portfolio, strengthening its in-house delivery for major infrastructure such as HS2 and National Highways schemes. Contractors and consultants can expect a better-integrated design-and-build offer on complex foundations, retaining structures and track-bed works, but also increased competition in the UK ground engineering market.

NASA’s Artemis II crew has completed a geology‑focused lunar flyby, using high‑resolution imaging and LiDAR to map candidate Artemis III landing zones across the South Pole–Aitken Basin and other polar regions. Astronauts conducted real‑time visual stratigraphy logging of crater walls up to several kilometres deep and coordinated spectral observations of suspected pyroclastic deposits and boulder fields larger than 5 metres. The resulting datasets on regolith thickness, block size distributions and slope angles are expected to refine bearing capacity models, excavation strategies and ground‑anchor design for future lunar surface infrastructure.