The 2019 UK Space Conference was held in September at the International Conference Centre in Newport, South Wales, and the Northern Space Consortium was there representing and promoting our region’s capabilities.
The night before the start of the three day conference the NSC held a drinks reception and Northern Stars event in the hotel next to the exhibition hall. The event was well attended not only by senior figures in the UK space industry including UK Space, Innovate UK and the UK Space Agency but also international guests from several countries including the USA, Ireland, Holland and Japan.
The evening started with a brief overview of the NSC by Bob Morris. Gerry Webb and Alistair Scott then described the role the British Interplanetary Society had played and continues to play in developing the space industry. Joanne Phoenix, NSC Board Member, talked about Sensor City, it’s capabilities and it’s success to date. Alan Cross, ESA Business Applications, described his role in developing the use of space data in the region. Finally Ray Stott, SpaceSpecialists, talked not only about his company’s services but also about the work that Mark Waters, 4wardfutures, with his Constructing a Life on Mars (CaLoM) project was doing in the region to motivate school children in STEM.
The rest of the evening was taken up with networking and resulted in lots of very useful business contacts being made, including meeting Johann-Dietrich Worner, ESA Director General. All this before the conference itself had even started .
The NSC had a stand at the conference that was manned by all the Board Members in attendance including Will Chambers and Gareth Abbott. As well as generating interest in the region there was ample time to visit the rest of the extensive exhibition, experience some of the technology on display such as a spacecraft docking simulator, meet Tim Peake and attend the various presentations.
The UK Space Conference 2019 was the largest and best attended to date and the NSC was able to raise the profile of our region and make many new great national and international contacts.