Hang out with Europe’s top space experts

Come and meet them, and hear the sometimes startling but ultimately uplifting stories of ‘Space Safety’ – the ingenious and inspiring ways we’re using space to protect us, and protecting space from ourselves.

• Join us live, virtually, on Monday 28 June from 18:00-20:00 CEST
• Meet top experts working on space debris, planetary defence, hazardous space weather, cyber resilience and many other areas
• Special sessions showcasing Asteroid Day, top European astronomers and how to bring a mission to cartoon life
• Register now - spaces limited!

Ever wondered what would happen if we discovered an asteroid on a collision course with Earth? Could we really deflect it? Perhaps you’ve heard about ‘space junk’, dead satellites falling back to Earth or you’ve seen trains of minisatellites marching across the sky? Maybe you’re interested in how satellites are helping us respond to natural disasters, or how the Sun poses a threat to modernity on Earth as well as astronauts in space?

On Monday, 28 June, 18:00 - 20:00 CEST, two dozen world-renowned experts from ESA and US and European institutions will be at your disposal, sharing their stories, answering your questions and illustrating why the ever-evolving field of Space Safety is worth celebrating.

Register for free now. But be quick! Places are limited.

Get with the programme

Safety & Security

From natural disasters to space debris to solar storms, people, the planet and the crucial infrastructure which we rely on are vulnerable to hazards on Earth, in orbit and from deep space.

The Safety & Security room is the place to be to discover the scale of these risks, find out how we are working to protect ourselves and ask what more needs to be done.

Expert speakers:

• Talking trash: The growing problem of space debris – Francesca Letizia & Thomas Ormston
• When the sky lit up: Could the Carrington event happen again? – Melanie Heil & Daniel Lakey
• Cyber resilience: How ESA keeps our missions safe – Elodie Viau & Florent Mazurelle
• SpaceCare: Disaster relief from space – Gordon Campbell

Planetary Defence

ESA’s Space Safety festival is being organised, above all, in honour of Asteroid Day – a global awareness campaign highlighting the risk we face from marauding space rocks. Our Planetary Defence room is dedicated to this issue, delving into the risk we face from asteroids, explaining the missions in development to test deflection for the first time and how ESA is keeping its eyes on the sky in the search for threatening visitors.

Expert speakers:

• Latest news from the Hera asteroid mission – Ian Carnelli & Hannah Goldberg
• ESA’s riskiest asteroids – Juan Luis Cano & Detlef Koschny
• How ESA searches for space rocks – Marco Micheli & Laura Faggioli
• International collaboration for asteroid exploration – Andy Rivkin & Chrysa Avdellidou

Partners & Outreach

Of course, no attempt to understand our risky place in the Solar System would be complete without international cooperation between space agencies, governments across the globe, businesses and storytellers.

In our Partners & Outreach room, we join forces with the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the world-renowned experts at Asteroid Day, two of the key figures developing the first mission to remove a piece of space debris from orbit and a science storyteller bringing asteroid deflection to life. 

Expert speakers:

• ESO: Big telescopes observing small objects! – Rosita Kokotanekova & Remco van der Burg
• Ask us anything: Live Q&A with Asteroid Day experts – Patrick Michel, Alan Fitzsimmons, Danica Remy & Heli Greus
• Clearspace-1: Beginnings of a debris removal mission – Luisa Innocenti & Muriel Richard
• Hera cartoon: Giving space a personality – Marianna Barrosa

Register here for a fascinating two hours that will shed light on our place in the Solar System, and how we’re working hard to make it safe.