by KRISTIN ENGEL
Cape Town - The South African National Space Agency (Sansa) will host the 16th International Space Operations Conference virtually next Monday to Wednesday.
The conference would have been held in Cape Town during 2020 but the plans were derailed by the global pandemic and lockdown restrictions.
The conference will host experts from major space organisations around the world, and offer a world-class programme focusing on the progress of space operations and outline trends in the operations of future missions.
As of Wednesday, there were 1100 registered delegates, consisting of students, experienced and young professionals.
Tiaan Strydom, chairperson of the conference and business development manager, said that this would be the first the SpaceOPS conference would be hosted in Africa and hosting it virtually allowed the conference to be more accessible to a larger audience.
“We are pleased that the virtual conference will be free of charge, making access and participation for delegates easy.
“In space there are no lockdowns, therefore, it was important that we continue with the conference irrespective of having a venue and filling up conference rooms,” said Strydom.
Some of the key speakers lined up for the event are Jose Morales from the European Space Agency; Claude Audouy from the National Centre for Space Studies (France); Kevin Marston from Eumetsat; Sabrina Eberle from German Aerospace Center; David Goldstein from Spacex and Philip Baldwin from NASA.
Key topics of the conference include ’Space Operations During the Covid-19 Pandemic; Commercial Ground Stations: New Space and Traditional Space; Human Spaceflight operations: Space Stations the Moon and Mars and Space Situational awareness: Protecting our assets in Space’.
The conference attracts technologists, scientists, managers, and experts from various international space agencies, industries, and academia and provides a platform to network, nurture existing relationships, build new partnerships and business opportunities with key global industry leaders from the space industry.
Sansa hosting the event demonstrates South Africa’s space capability to the rest of the world.