On April 14, 2018, SpaceUp unconference took place in Lima, Peru, at “Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología”.

SpaceUp Peru was organized with the help of several institutions: The Mars Society Peru Chapter, Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC), Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), and the Peruvian Space Agency (CONIDA).

UTEC was responsible for the most of the logistics, mainly for the setup of the auditorium and the room for the participants’ talks. CONIDA’s support was in providing souvenirs for the participants as well as an inviting a guest from their CNOIS facilities who gave a talk about the satellite PeruSat-1.

The Mars Society Peru Chapter was in charge of the program and media management prior to the event. The institution also worked on the search for the funds needed for the materials. Space Generation Advisory Council supported the event promoting it through social media and the Peruvian mailing list of the organization.

The event was attended by almost 100 participants.

Coming up April 28th, 2018 at University of Lagos, SpaceUp Nigeria is a one-day space unconference about the space sector. At SpaceUp Nigeria you will meet fellow space enthusiasts and hear speeches from expert panelists. As in any SpaceUp event, you are also encouraged to give a presentation! We welcome all of our participants to express their views and opinions.

The program of SpaceUp Nigeria includes two main events: the Unconference itself, which is going to be held during the daytime, and the Astronomy Barbeque in the evening. There also will be a Night Sky Watching and a live DJ-set.

Participants will be provided with food and SWAG bags!

Registration is open, please, follow the link: SpaceUp Nigeria Registration Form

This year’s SpaceUp Skoltech, which took place on 21th of April, was a great success! The event was attended by more than 100 participants of all age.

The main topic of the SpaceUp unconference in Skoltech was “Limitations of current Space Development”. The discussion focused on different aspects of the issue such as manned missions, technology, business and policies, including the challenges in the path of advancement.

Among invited guests were international astronauts. French astronaut Jean-Jacques Favier talked about his mission STS-78. First Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier gave the presentation on his space experiences of 4 shuttle missions, he also talked about servicing the Hubble Space Telescope in space. Russian cosmonaut Sergei Revin gave a speech about the limitations in academics that were hurdles in the path of space exploration.

At the end of the event participants watched the historical space drama “Salyut 7” based on the real events (the Soyuz T-13 mission in 1985).

Team SpaceUp Skoltech thanks everyone who was involved! See you next time!

Photo source: @SpaceUpSkoltech

SpaceUp Naija is here!

The Space Affair is burgeoning in Nigeria aka Naija! Watch out for more as the lovers of space are brought together in the beautiful metropolitan city of Lagos to interact and  have fun. Important topics in the space sector will be discussed in an atmosphere of total freedom and relaxation, where participants get to decide the topics and the structure of the event. The program provides opportunity for everyone who attends to give a talk or start a discussion. There are no spectators at SpaceUp, only participants.

SpaceUp Nigeria 2018 will take place April 28 on the campus of the University of Lagos, Nigeria.

After the success of the first SpaceUp event in Russia last year, Skoltech (The Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, which is situated in Skolkovo, suburb of Moscow, Russia) has geared up for the second edition.

This year SpaceUp Skoltech will bring in a new dimension that echoes the Skoltech spirit. The team invites and encourages you to share your disruptive ideas which can be transformed into viable space projects or profitable startups! Bring your robots, spacecrafts and any prototype you wish to demonstrate. There will be lunch, snacks and games too!

Registration is opened, join us in Skolkovo for another SpaceUp unconference in Russia on April 21, 2018.

Hesitate no more: go to the SpaceUp Skoltech, 2018  website to register now! New participants, famous guests, and hot Space topics are waiting for you. See you there!

Download the IAC 2017 paper here

With a one day format, the T minus 5 talks were moved to the beginning of the day to help spark session discussion ideas. One of the “ice-breaker” talks featured a song and a dance with Space Shuttle slippers!

The session board quickly filled up with great session topics – “Mars as a service” and “Nuclear Propulsion.”

The day ended with a fascinating discussion of the future of SpaceUp focused in San Diego.  The overwhelming consensus …? Let’s do this again! Let’s keep the conversation going. And let’s get-together more often.

So there you have it.  Let the Space Geekiness continue! Coming soon…..

About the name SpaceUpX: The Ecole Polytechnique is a technical university just outside of Paris, France. It was founded in 1794 and turned into a military institute by Emperor Napoleon in 1804. This ‘Grand Ecole’ is locally known as l’X (the X), due to its military logo of two crossed cannons. It produced three Nobel prize winners, as well as three French Presidents and numerous Ministers. Former head of ESA and special speaker at SpaceUpX, Jean-Jacques Dordain, is an alumni and taught here for many years. I am sure we will hear more of the SpaceUpX local organizing team in the future!

The second Dutch edition of SpaceUp Netherlands (3 October 2015) kicked off with a pre-event the day before, at Delft University of Technology in Delft. Starting with drinks and a nice pizza dinner the participants of the unconference were welcomed. Followed by a unique and very interesting documentary in the evening about the MARS2013 Analog Expedition in Morocco, by the Austrian Space Forum (ÖWF). The evening resulted in energetic discussions and inspiration for topics to be discussed during the unconference the next day. For a lucky few it was even possible to join a behind-the-scenes tour at the facilities of ESTEC in that afternoon. Another nice addition was that the SpaceUp was followed up by the open day of ESA-ESTEC on the Sunday.

It is Saturday, ten o’clock in the morning, and all the participants are assembling at the Space Expo venue, in front of the ESA-ESTEC facility in Noordwijk. Within half an hour everyone is being registered, thanks to a superb organisation. Equipped with a nicely filled welcome goody bag and coffee the participants are ready to embark on their unconference day. For me personally this was my first SpaceUp event and after a small introduction by the organisation on the concept of the unconference I was ready.

The session grid was quickly filling up with interesting talks and discussions which were divided over three different locations inside Space Expo. With the Ariane hall being the largest room providing for large scaled and healthy heated discussions like the question “should we limit the access to space for commercial companies with the ever expanding space debris problem in mind”. The smaller Astronauts hall provided the floor for many other interesting talks and small workshops, like interactive astrodynamics and the Kerbal Space Program game. A nice experience is that the unconference allows you to chose what the content is and that you decide on what you want to listen to next.

A third arranged location was the “On the Moon” floor in the Space Expo hall. It allowed for small discussions, but also for one-on-one talks with the participants that just gave a talk on a topic that you are very interested in. However, also a small break from the talks could be enjoyed with the nice scenery of the exposition in the background as if you were actually on the moon. Finally, the SpaceUp event was closed off by a very delicious dinner and drinks to continue the fruitful discussions on the nearby beach with a beautiful sunset in the background.

In a nutshell, the SpaceUpNL 2015 was a great experience and many other unconferences will follow for me. Even though I did not give a talk myself I had great discussions with many of the participants inside and outside the session grid. For my next SpaceUp I will definitely sign up for a talk and hope that I can inspire many other space enthusiasts like I was inspired after that day.

Biography

Lars Hoving is a Dutch master student in Aerospace Engineering, with a specialization in astrodynamics. Lars’ thesis, which is about to be finished, is on low-thrust multiple gravity-assist trajectory design. Besides aerospace engineering, Lars also holds a bachelor degree in Information and Communication Technology in which he did his thesis on test software for radio telescopes at the Dutch radio astronomy institute ASTRON. In 2015 Lars attended the Space Studies Program of the International Space University in Athens, Ohio, USA.

SpaceUpX? You mean SpaceX? SpaceUp at an unknown location perhaps? No! It is the name for the next edition of SpaceUp Paris, at the Ecole Polytechnique, that uses the X as its main logo. Registration just opened, so join us in Paris for another epic SpaceUp unconference in France on 7 and 8 November 2015! Go to the official SpaceUpX (Paris) website to join!