As full-fledged member of the community of European space researchers

The topic of this year’s conference was "Integrated space systems, missions and concepts", but the speakers did touch upon the highlights of the previous  events, for example the application of small satellites, intelligent services to observe the earth, or in Smart Cities. The popularity of the event was shown by the increasing number of foreign speakers. Representatives of the United States, Italy, and India were also present this year.

As tradition has it, first the researchers took the floor at the conference. Alongside the results of the University of Technology, those of the institutes of the Academy of Sciences were presented. András Balázs, researcher at the Wigner Research Center for Physics of the Academy of Sciences spoke about the Philae lander of the Rosetta comet spacecraft, and the considerable Hungarian contribution to its development.

In the technology section Pál Bárczy introduced the latest research results in space materials science on behalf of one of Hungary’s biggest industrial players, Admatis Plc. The company has received support from the Horizon 2020 Program of the European Union: the multi-actor, 3-year international project called ICARUS might mark a new era in the development of metal alloys for space equipment.

Chemists were new to the conference. Ferenc Darvas, one of the most eminent experts in flow chemistry gave a speech about this increasingly significant field on behalf of ThalesNano. This branch of chemistry studies chemical processes in space where - in the absence of gravity - they take place differently than they do on the earth, and thus require new approaches. When planning, for example, a Mars expedition it is crucial that no food and medicines should be taken from the earth. The products should be manufactured in the spacecraft, or under the completely different gravity of the Mars from the most important medicinal active ingredients.

Lluc Diaz, representative of ESA’s Technology Transfer Office put forward the office’s efforts to facilitate the use of space technology in other areas. He also spoke about the recently established 16th European technology transfer office of ESA set up in the Wigner Research Center for Physics, and the European network of business incubators.

The second day of the conference was opened by László Jakab, dean of BME VIK, László Bacsárdi, secretary-general of co-organizer Hungarian Astronautical Society, and Marisa Michelini, chairwoman of the International Research Group on Physics Teaching (Groupe International de Recherche sur l'Enseignement de la Physique, GIREP).

The third section of the conference was – as the tradition goes – devoted to education and awareness raising. The lecturers spoke about academic and non-academic education, and domestic and international practices in Hungarian and English. Daniele Buongiorno, a fellow researcher of Marisa Michelini’s gave an outline of the challenges of teaching optical spectroscopy at high schools and at universities.

The SpacePaprika Workshop with the participation of 50 Hungarian youth was organized alongside the conference. The event was a collaboration between the Hungarian Astronautical Society (MANT), the international Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) under the auspices of the UN, BME, and the Scientific Association for Infocommunications. The participants of last year’s Space Academy organized by MANT and SGAC developed a Hungarian experiment for the International Space Station involving paprika growing. The workshop offered an opportunity for those interested to further develop the concept.