Scotland-headquartered strategic space marketing firm, AstroAgency, have announced a special edition of their online networking event, SpaceBar, to focus on topics surrounding space and sustainability. The event on 22 April coinciding with Earth Day will include a virtual roundtable discussion with leading experts on the topic of space debris, as well as separate overviews and insights into how various space organisations use space technology to solve climate-related issues, before opening up for audience discussions and networking. To mark the special occasion SpaceBar will be renamed “EarthBar” to highlight the crucial role of the space sector helping to support climate action.
Initially, SpaceBar was created by AstroAgency in response to the global coronavirus pandemic to help support in-person social interaction and networking in the absence of space sector conferences and events. SpaceBar is organised and hosted bi-monthly on a voluntary basis and boasts an interactive platform where visitors can openly contribute to discussions and exchange ideas. SpaceBar has quickly gained popularity and international acclaim attracting a diverse audience mix, including university students and graduates, start-ups, businesses, entrepreneurs, investors and international space CEOs all sharing their passion for the space sector.
During March, the event celebrated its first year anniversary in style, with SpaceBar hosts Dallas Campbell and Dr. Suzie Imber welcoming European Space Agency astronaut Major Tim Peake, Dr. Kevin Fong and Deputy CEO of UK Space Agency, Ian Annett. Over 300 guests joined the session from around the world, interreacting with the special guests, with the event finally coming to a close after almost seven hours of space industry networking.
On the 22nd of April at 1900 BST, the virtual doors to SpaceBar’s online event will open for “EarthBar”, a play on the usual event title to mark the Earth Day occasion, in an effort to promote conversations around sustainability in the space industry. The evening will focus particularly on the topic of space debris, in an attempt to bring the audience to consider low earth orbit as part of Earth’s environment. Participants in the “LEO: Earth or Space?” panel will include commercial on-orbit services company, Astroscale, who recently orbited their innovative debris docking and removal mission, ELSA-d, and US based space data intelligence company, Slingshot Aerospace. The discussion will be led by Clint Graumann, CEO of Florida based TerraMetric, who will also be joined by space science expert Dr Moriba Jah from the University of Texas at Austin and UK-based space situational awareness firm NORSS.
The space debris panel will be followed by a series of ‘Sustainable Space Snapshots’ where each company will give an overview of how they are using space technologies to help solve climate-related problems on Earth. That section of the evening will include a host of innovative firms that use space access to directly bring benefits to our planet in ways such as monitoring deforestation, tracking illegal fishing and mining and using space data to enable a better response to disaster relief. Companies involved include OceanMind, Ordnance Survey, Deploy Solutions, Global Surface Intelligence, Omanos Analytics, Utilis Corp. and Ecosene.
AstroAgency Founder Daniel Smith stated “We’re pleased to see the platform is providing a great way for people to make connections during a time when, for most of us, meeting in person is simply not possible. We’ve been planning the Earth Day edition for a while and the team are all looking forward to a discussion that fits so well with our company values, in terms of the sustainable use of space.”
AstroAgency were set up in late 2019 to provide strategic marketing services exclusively for space sector organisations and companies looking to enter the industry - which has seen rapid growth throughout the UK and across the globe. According to space consulting firm Euroconsult, more small satellites were launched in 2020 than ever before, despite the pandemic, with the UK Space Agency looking to capture 10% of the global space market by 2030.
Registration is now open for Earth Day’s SpaceBar here.
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