The world’s space agencies are meeting in Milan this week as geopolitical rivalry fuels a new global race in Earth’s orbit and on the moon, with heavy involvement from a private sector toiling to keep pace with Elon Musk’s dominant SpaceX.
The International Astronautical Congress (IAC) since 1950 has been a venue for the scientists, engineers, companies and political leaders of spacefaring nations to discuss cooperation, even in times of heightened tensions among world powers.
This year’s conference will put the space minds of two top rivals – the U.S. and China – under one roof. But Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, a storied power now isolated from the West after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, will have no official presence, highlighting the latest fault lines in space cooperation.
Still, nearly all of the 77 member countries of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), the non-profit that organises IAC, have turned out for talks on what attendees expect will touch heavily on lunar exploration, NASA’s growing coalition of countries under its Artemis moon programme and Europe’s pressing need for more sovereign access to space.
IAF President Clay Mowry said a record 7,197 technical abstracts were submitted for this congress, and a record 37% of the papers would be given by students and young professionals. “This is the most exciting time in space since the Apollo era in the 1960s,” he told Reuters.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson is expected to rally support at IAC for agency’s strategy to tap private companies to replace the ageing International Space Station after its 2030 retirement.
The more than two-decade old orbiting science laboratory has been a symbol of space diplomacy led primarily by the U.S. and Russia, despite conflicts on Earth. Malaysia is particularly hard hit, as two sources told Reuters more than 700 jobs were slashed in the country.
NASA, which is investing billions of dollars in its flagship Artemis moon programme, has been keen on maintaining a presence in low-Earth orbit to compete with China’s Tiangong space station, which has continuously housed Chinese astronauts for three years.
The U.S. and China are also racing to land this decade the first humans on the moon since the last American Apollo mission in 1972. The two space powers are aggressively courting partner countries and leaning heavily on private companies for their moon programmes, shaping the space objectives of smaller space agencies along the way.