A program designed to advance your work and career

Utilizing space to develop new goods and services that can benefit all of humanity is an undertaking of unprecedented scope. Join us as we explore the fundamental considerations necessary to capture the world’s interest and enable our off-world future, including questions relating to the technological, economic, risk-related, industrial and workforce elements of that growth. How will we work together to ensure the right capabilities and systems are ready when we need them? How will private investors, working alongside government agencies, collaborate to bring these new capabilities to market? Which non-endemic industries will be essential to moving the space economy forward? How will we build a sustainable space economy? Bring your ideas and help build an understanding of how solving these issues, individually and in tandem, will chart a navigable path.

Keynotes: Dhani Jones, QEY Capital and Steve Jurvetson, Future Ventures

Visions of a trillion-dollar space economy are driving planning and investment. This session brings together leading experts on the space economy to provide deep insight building on established theory and cutting-edge analysis. We will cover the dynamics of the space economy and differential growth drivers across sectors, to provide actionable insights for business leaders and policy makers.

Moderator: Carissa Christensen, Bryce Space & Technology

In the growing space economy, the top of mind question for every CEO is, “What is it going to take for a company to make money in space in a sustainable way?” This session takes a deep dive into understanding why and how organizations are investing in space, including a look at emerging commercial development opportunities, the adjacent market landscape, and what might be over the horizon.

Moderator: Tess Hatch, Bessemer Venture Partners

The emergence of broadband and 5G services promises high bandwidth, low latency communications to enable instantaneous downloads, cloud gaming, and much more. How will space technologies help to develop these telecommunication networks of the future? And how will the telecommunication industry, in turn, help to develop space-based networks that will enable our off-world future? Join us for a discussion with mobile network operators and companies providing terrestrial infrastructure, near-space telecommunications, and satellite communications, along with the industries who will rely on their products.

Terrestrial infrastructure and mining companies benefit from space technology in the form of earth observation, space-based messaging and the application of predominately space industry tools, like systems engineering. How are space technologies helping terrestrial mining and construction industries become more efficient in these challenging times? And how will the terrestrial mining and construction industry help us build our off-world future? Join us for a discussion with terrestrial mining and construction companies, space experts and NASA technology program managers to discuss the possibilities for our off-world future.

Exploring Earth, the Moon, Mars or anywhere else in the solar system will require the combined efforts of commercial industry, government, and academia. Establishing permanent human settlements on the Moon and Mars will require capturing and building on lessons from a host of disciplines. Beyond the infrastructure and technologies that will be needed, what terrestrial technologies, like construction, telecommunications and mining, may be profitably advanced for use in space? How will we coordinate strategic space investments across government agencies? What other benefits for humankind lie in space exploration and in establishing a permanent off-world civilization? Join us as we consider the opportunities and challenges that we face as the world takes steps into its off-world future.

Keynote: James F. “Jim” Bridenstine, NASA Administrator

One of the most important conversations around future technology is how to grow the breadth and depth of the community engaged in inventing, building, and maintaining our future in space. This roundtable session with leaders of some of the top engineering programs in the country will explore how the aerospace community can engage the brightest minds into our enterprise, bring them into careers that accelerate the building of our off-world future, and retain top innovators throughout their career.

Moderator: Bobby Braun, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, former Dean, University of Colorado Boulder

Earth Observation has been undeniable as a source of truth since the launch of LandSat in 1972 watching as humanity has nearly tripled its population and terraformed our planet.  Observations from space and made available as a global good has allowed for numerous civil society benefits.  As we enter a new decade and 10 years left to achieve the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals, join this session to hear from systems-change project that utilize remote sensing data to help make progress to meet the Global Goals.

We’re back focused on the Moon but is this focus here to stay? It will be if we can develop agreement on why we need to go back to the Moon, this time to stay. NASA’s Artemis architecture provides a good framework for getting started, but how will we develop a permanent presence on the Moon? What are the technological challenges? What economical drivers are most likely to lead to a permanent presence on the Moon? And what can we do now to maximize our learning on the Moon for future exploration and settlement of Mars?

Moderator: George Sowers, Colorado School of Mines

As LEO commercialization moves from cautious early entrants to a burgeoning global effort, we’ll need space structures built at scale–for government labs, academic research, industry R&D, and space tourism. These structures will need all the considerations of resource-constrained habitats on Earth (power generation and construction optimization, sustainable and closed-loop life support, interior space allocation, user-centric design, and more), while also relying on the rigors of aerospace engineering to survive in the unique challenges of the space environment. Listen to the leading minds in construction at mega-scale, to the architects, urban planners, and space engineers who will finally realize humanity’s centuries-old ambition of living in space habitats amongst the stars.

Moderator: Ariel Ekblaw, MIT Space Exploration Initiative

This session is focused on understanding the capability of remote sensing instruments in lunar orbit and what information current and future scientific data sets can provide to characterize deposits of minerals of interest for extraction and utilization,
including water ice. We will explore the nature of the knowledge gap that exists between current capabilities and data, and that which is needed to create deposit maps in their geologic contexts to enable the inference of resources at the desired level of accuracy. The
discussion will also explore how a synergistic exchange of benefits can be generated between lunar science investigations and focused efforts to assess and prove specific resources through sharing the development of science instruments and scientific understanding of the lunar geology.

Moderator: Laurent Sibille, Southeastern University Research Association

The space community is investing in the future by advancing capabilities and developing the transformative technologies required to unlock a sustainable presence on the Moon, as well as the exploration of Mars and other destinations that await. Engage with leaders from NASA, industry, and academia as we explore the opportunities and challenges on the cutting-edge of this research.

Moderator: Jim Reuter, NASA

With human spaceflight expanding into the epoch of exploration-class missions, the way in which we go about training our astronauts and crew medical officers needs to evolve accordingly – as do the medical capabilities, technologies and infrastructures associated with long-duration missions to distant locales. How does space medicine need to adapt, and how do we build medical infrastructure for long-duration missions? From existing to emerging to pie-in-the-sky technologies, what medical capabilities should a long-duration mission to the Moon, Mars or beyond include? How can space agencies support new medical paradigms? How do remote communities on Earth stand to benefit from innovations for space? Join our panelists as we talk all about the future of space medicine – from the here-and-now to “science fiction” type ideas waiting to become reality.

Moderator: Dr. Shawna Pandya (Physician, VP Immersive Medicine – Luxsonic Technologies, Scientist-Astronaut Candidate – Project PoSSUM)

The Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS, or “commercial cargo”) program began the era of commercialization in Low Earth Orbit. Join a panel of experts to talk about the successes and lessons learned from the commercial crew and cargo delivery programs and the more recent studies of commercial LEO platforms. Learn what this team did collectively, how they did it, and what it means for the future of space development. What can we learn to ensure our success as we transition to the future of commercial LEO platforms and exploration of the Moon and Mars?

National security and policy implications are vital considerations at each point of current and future space development. How will we ensure the peaceful use of space for all through policy, regulation, and enforcement, and how will we work with international partners to build out space infrastructure for global development ? Join us to address topics like space domain management, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and earth observation as instruments to further our ability to develop and protect this critical domain.

Keynote: General John W. “Jay” Raymond, United State Space Force and United States Space Command

Space is a key element in multi-domain operations, enabling weapons and integrating for effects. Whereas space was historically used principally for exquisite, strategic missions, today’s environment sees an increasing demand for space capabilities as an integrating function to the field-deployed warfighter. How do we integrate space into BMC2 systems and networks to delivery rapid decisionmaking, support and warfighting? Where are the continued gaps (e.g., technologies, systems, CONOPS, policies) in our abilities to deliver this multi-domain capability and how can the space enterprise support the closing of those gaps?

Today more than ever, our daily lives rely on the satellite networks 22,000 miles above the Earth. Ensuring the security of these systems is vital not only to our economies but also to the safety of our nations against threats. This session addresses the critical issues that must be addressed and the role of public and private enterprise in space cybersecurity.

With the evolution of launch capabilities, processing capacity, and sensors, the door has opened to a variety of new architectures in the space domain. In some respects, the traditional view defining space as “GEO vs. NGSO solutions to support terrestrial missions” is no longer relevant in the national security domain as we look toward the intersection of terrestrial and space capabilities, as we grow the focus to include orbits like cis-lunar, and as we’re increasingly interested in what’s happening in the dynamics among adversaries, commercial entities, and allies on-orbit. What is the architecture for the Space Warfighting Domain? What is the trade-space? What is the role of PLEO? Legacy systems? New entrants and Commercial?

Logistics infrastructure is the backbone of economic power. Throughout human history, nations that exercised the ability to project power over great distances did so by first leveraging an early investment in superior logistics. The technological advancements that fueled economies with riches gained through trade, concomitantly enabled unmatched military power that established long standing empires. As more nations achieve spacefaring status, the untapped geography and resources of space will belong to those nations that create the sustainable logistics infrastructure and economic benefit to access them.

This session will explore a thesis that the Great Powers competition of the 21st Century will be decided in space with the Moon as the strategic high ground.  A sustainable cislunar logistics infrastructure, built as a public-private partnership, will transform the spacefaring paradigm and launch a new era of great economic expansion. The United States’ return to the Moon should be a whole-of-nation effort that cannot be pursued for exploration purposes alone.