École Polytechnique: École Polytechnique fills the space at SpaceConnect’21 on June 24

SpaceConnect’21, an event dedicated to the European space community, will take place in a hybrid format on June 24 in Meudon with a strong involvement of the École Polytechnique.

Organized under the aegis of the Centre National des Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA) and the Association Aéronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF), the one day event will include a forum, conferences and workshops on current space issues, an exhibition of models and space projects, and a competition on the educational video game Kerbal Space Program to select the best project for a habitable and permanent lunar base.

The forum will host some thirty booths and will allow informal meetings between startup managers, students, researchers, PhD students and investors. The conferences in TedX format will provide an opportunity for key personalities of the industry to express their views on issues such as the challenges and opportunities of space or the prospects of human activities on the Moon or Mars.

Eric Labaye, President of École Polytechnique and Institut Polytechnique de Paris, will introduce the afternoon conference and inaugurate X’s collaboration with the start-up Exotrail, co-founded and directed by David Henri (X2013) on ExoOps, the orbital mechanics software on the Kerbal Space Program.

The SpaceCon association, which organizes the event, was founded by Pierre Cordesse, a doctoral alumnus of the Centre de Mathématiques Appliquées (CMAP, a joint research unit of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the École Polytechnique), Ruben Di Battista, a doctoral student at CMAP, and Arnaud Gallant (X2014).

The Chair “Space; Science and Challenges of Space” funded by Thalès Alenia Space and Arianegroup will participate in the event forum through the Student Space Center of X, where it will be accompanied by the Astronautix Student Association.