Luxembourg Represented at 75th International Astronautical Congress in Milan

From Monday 14 to Wednesday 16 October 2024, Luxembourg's Minister of the Economy, SMEs, Energy and Tourism, Lex Delles, attended the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Milan, Italy.

As reported by the Ministry of the Economy and the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA), some 9,000 participants from around the world visited the 11,000 m2 exhibition area for this 75th edition of the congress.

Focused on the theme of sustainability, the conference hosted for the first time the "IAF Space Leaders Summit", which aims to foster coordination and collaboration between space agencies around the world. Minister Delles had the opportunity to participate in this summit, a formal high-level closed-door meeting, during which he made a statement describing the contribution of Luxembourg's space sector to sustainability on Earth.

The exhibition "Space for our Planet", with which Luxembourg is associated, was also exhibited on the sidelines of the IAC. This exhibition examines the role that space must play in the United Nations 2030 Agenda, which defines seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at promoting prosperity, planetary well-being, peace and partnerships and protecting populations. It consists of interviews highlighting concrete examples showing how technologies contribute to the achievement of the seventeen SDGs.

The Luxembourg national pavilion at the IAC, organised with the support of the LSA, hosted fourteen exhibitors from the Luxembourg ecosystem: ispace Europe, Mission Space, Gradel, Odysseus, Manaa, Emtronix, ESRIC, LIST, LMO, SES, Bradford, Clearspace, Lunar Outpost and Redwire. It was inaugurated by Minister Delles, who met with representatives of the companies, as well as Mats Jung, one of the 35 "Astronauts for a Day" selected by the LSA to become an ambassador for the space sector in his school for the 2023/2024 school year. This pavilion is an opportunity for companies to present their products and services, and to strengthen their international collaborations.

OQ Technologies, a Luxembourg startup active in the field of 5G and the Internet of Things (IOT), announced on this occasion that it had obtained an investment in the form of a convertible loan from the new Luxembourg Space Sector Development Fund (LSSD), co-managed by SES SA and the Luxembourg government. The company had already raised €13 million in 2022. It also announced a collaborative mission with D-orbit, active in the space logistics and transport services industry. Scheduled for early 2026, the mission could pave the way for more efficient and cost-effective satellite services, particularly in the fields of IoT and 5G connectivity in remote areas.

Moreover, the Ministry of the Economy and the LSA took advantage of the IAC to meet their private and public partners, and notably visited the stand of the Japanese company ispace inc., the parent company of ispace Europe. Minister Delles discovered a full-scale model of the lunar lander that will carry the lunar rover developed by ispace Europe as part of the Japanese lunar exploration programme HAKUTO-R, which is scheduled to be launched at the end of 2024.

The delegation then met with the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) to take stock of the latest developments and in particular the implementation of the agreements signed in June 2024, the memorandum of cooperation (MoC) between the Luxembourg and Japanese ministries and between JAXA and the LSA. Together, they discussed several avenues for further strengthening cooperation, particularly in the context of the future MAGPIE mission, which ispace Europe is currently developing as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) with the support of the LSA.

A meeting with ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher also provided an opportunity to reaffirm Luxembourg's priorities in the context of its joint activities with the ESA.

Minister Delles also met with Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator. The ministry noted that the American agency has shown renewed interest in the Luxembourg ecosystem and the contributions that national stakeholders could make within the framework of the Artemis agreements, which aim to return Man to the Moon.

For his third and final day in Milan, Minister Delles visited the OHB Italia site, to visit the company's satellite assembly facilities, and to discover the NAOS satellite. NAOS will be an Earth observation mission for the Luxembourg government. NAOS is a very high-resolution optical satellite system, which will be placed at approximately 450 km in a low polar orbit that will orbit the Earth fifteen times a day, taking images of the entire Earth.

At the end of the trip, Minister Delles said: "The IAC exhibition is an essential event for the space industry, and it is important for Luxembourg to be present, because it promotes collaboration between space agencies around the world. In addition, sustainability, which was the central theme chosen this year, is also at the heart of Luxembourg's space strategy. Indeed, as a vector for diversification and sustainability of the Luxembourg economy, we want the space sector to contribute to the sustainability of activities on Earth, while favouring a responsible approach to activities in space. This is the message I conveyed during my speech at the IAF Space Leaders Summit."

The next notable event for the sector is Luxembourg Space Week, which will bring together four events around space, including the New Space Europe conference which will be held on 3 December 2024 at the European Convention Centre Luxembourg (ECCL).