Space Commerce

UK to Host this Year’s Reinventing Space Conference

By Marc Boucher
Press Release
June 2, 2014
Filed under ,

After eleven successful years, the 2014 Reinventing Space Conference will be coming to Britain during November.
Organised this year by the British Interplanetary Society, the three day meeting, including a conference and exhibition will be held within the historic location of the Royal Society in London, the home of British science since the seventeenth century.

Increasing demands to reduce spending have led to both new challenges and new opportunities in global space. We need to create dramatically lower cost, more responsive systems and, of course, the launch systems needed to get them to space quickly. So that business and government can take advantage of these rapidly evolving capabilities, an annual conference has been taking place, dedicated to the sector.

Technical sessions and panels will be looking at finding ways to work together to make things happen:

– New ways of doing business in space – how do we make money on affordable and responsive space missions?
– Tactical space systems – how do we best serve the needs of defence missions; civilian missions; the needs of emergency responders?
– Interplanetary missions – can we use new technology to explore the Solar System at dramatically lower cost?
– What are the methods, processes, and technologies that we can use to make major reductions in the cost of space missions?
– New application areas for low-cost space systems – which ones can take advantage of newer, much-lower-cost systems?
– How do we educate motivate the next generation, without whom there is no future industry?

Confirmed keynote speakers for Reinventing Space 2014 include:
– Alice Bunn Director of Policy, UK Space Agency
– Gil Klinger US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
– Franco Ongaro European Space Agency Director (D/TEC) and Head of ESTEC
– Sir Martin Sweeting Executive Chairman, SSTL; Director, Surrey Space Centre
– Jim Wertz President, Microcosm
– David Willetts UK Minister of State for Science and Universities

2014 marks the first time that Reinventing Space has been held outside of the United States. It is coming to London at a pertinent time for the UK which has the world’s second-largest national aerospace industry. A new grouping led by the UK Space Agency has just published “Government Response to the UK Space Innovation and Growth Strategy 2014-2030”. The report predicts that the country’s space sector will grow fourfold over the next sixteen years.

It is also an appropriate time for RIspace to be coming to Europe. With the continent’s economy poised for growth, Ariane 6 on the drawing board and support for the Skylon spaceplane from ESA, Europe’s space sector is particularly focused right now on lower-cost, ground-breaking systems.
With world politics in a state of tremendous flux this year, international space is poised for big changes.

Join us in November as Reinventing Space continues to take low cost space from imagination to reality.

For more information, please contact Scott Hatton at media@rispace.org

Conference dates: Tuesday 18 – Thursday 20 November 2014

12th Reinventing Space Conference website:
www.rispace.org

ABOUT REINVENTING SPACE
Reinventing Space is an annual conference that has been taking place since 2001, dedicated to the responsive space sector. It was established by Dr James R. Wertz, an authority in orbit and attitude control systems, satellite autonomy, sensor measurement theory and space mission cost reduction.

ABOUT THE BRITISH INTERPLANETARY SOCIETY
The British Interplanetary Society (BIS) is Britain’s leading think tank on space development. Founded in 1933, it is the world’s longest established organisation devoted solely to supporting and promoting the exploration of space and astronautics. Revenue from the conference contributes to the mission of the BIS – initiating, promoting and disseminating new concepts and technical information about space flight and astronautics through meetings, symposia, publications, visits, conferences and exhibitions.

ABOUT THE ROYAL SOCIETY
The Royal Society is the host for Reinventing Space 2014, which will be independently organised by the BIS at the venue. Revenue from the portion of the venue hire of the Royal Society contributes to its own fundamental purpose to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity. The RIspace exhibition will display rarely-seen artefacts from the Society’s incredible scientific heritage.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.