GMV sponsored the Third Space Engineering Congress, put on in online format in late October by the Space Committee of Spain’s Engineering Institute (Instituto de la Ingeniería de España: IIE) and the Space Group of the Association of Aeronautics Engineers of Spain (Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros Aeronáuticos de España: COIAE).

With King Felipe VI as honorary president, the opening addresses were given by Pedro Duque, Spain’s minister of Science and Innovation; José Trigueros, IIE President; Álvaro Giménez, director general of the General Foundation of Spain’s Higher Scientific Research Council (CSIC in Spanish initials); and Isabel Vera, President of IIE’s Space Committee.

Under the banner theme «Space, the Final Frontier», the 3-day lecture program revolved around communication and navigation technology; earth-observation missions; space-exploration missions; mission-analysis developments; space debris; rocket- and satellite-electronics; and New Space issues like low-cost missions and new propulsion systems, among others.

The congress kicked off with a discussion panel on sustainable development goals and the impact of COVID-19 on the space sector, run by Jorge Potti, General Manager of GMV’s space sector and Vice President of the Space Committee of the Spanish Association of Space, Aeronautics and Defense Technology Companies (Asociación Española de Empresas Tecnológicas de Defensa, Aeronáutica y Espacio: TEDAE); Emilio Vez, from the Industrial Technology Development Center (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial: CDTI); Ángel Moratilla, from the National Aerospace Technology Institute (Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial: INTA); Javier Ventura-Traveset, from the European Space Agency (ESA) and José Luis Rodríguez, from Spain’s main air-navigation services provider, ENAIRE.

GMV also gave four papers in various congress sessions; the first shared the company’s insights and expertise in EO data-mining platforms; the second talked about its space-traffic management work; the third about its company’s space-debris removal work; and the fourth about its developments in precise and safe positioning technology for autonomous driving.