On 23-24 January 2024, the 16th European Space Conference, held in Brussels, has gathered as usual high-level decision makers from across EU institutions and Member States, the European Space Agency, national agencies, representatives of the industry, defense and research domain.

At the start of a fundamental year for space and Europe, both by the geo-political and the technological point of view, emphasis was given to several topics, including the current European space access capability crisis, the upcoming EU Space Law, the next Exploration Programmes.

In this context, ESRE Chair Prof. A. Blandini, CIRA President, was invited to speak about the topic The Future of European Space Exploration: Geopolitical and socioeconomic perspectives of European Human Space Flight and Robotic exploration with other distinguished panelist, among them the ESA Astronaut S. Cristoforetti, the ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration Mr. D. Neuenschwander, and topical figures of main private stakeholders.
During the discussion panel, Mr. A. Blandini forwarded ESRE key message of a need for Europe tohave a main Space Exploration Programme “under the flag” of Europe, to inspire youngsters to engage in the European space sector, including and especially in space science, but also to foster the whole European technological value chain, from Academia to Industries, going through Research Organizations, SMEs and start-ups, allowing Europe to gain technological sovereignty and to achieve technological and geo-political non-dependence in exploration, and particularly in human space flight.

During the discussion, Mr. Blandini was also highlighting that cooperative approach ESRE is now following to develop technologies in the space exploration domain, among those miniature instruments for in-situ planetary exploration, in situ Resource Utilization -ISRU- technologies, innovative dust mitigation techniques and materials, radiation shielding innovative materials for human space flight.

More information and the whole discussion may be found on https://spaceconference.eu/