MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The opening ceremony of the International Aerospace Congress (IAC 15) will be held at 6 p.m. local time (15:00 GMT) at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The congress will run from Friday to Monday.
The event is being organized by the Russian Federal Space Agency in cooperation with its foreign counterparts – the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Representatives from the Pentagon’s key military contractor Lockheed Martin will also be in attendance.
Topics up for discussion vary from space station technologies and space transport designs to nanosatellites and asteroid hazards.
IAC is a triannual event hosted by Moscow. This year’s edition is dedicated to celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first-ever spacewalk and to 70 years since the creation of the United Nations. The congress is primarily a networking opportunity that attracts hundreds of scientists, designers, engineers, and astronauts from around the globe.