Kick off the day by collecting your badge and enjoying a selection of breakfast refreshments while networking with fellow attendees.

Join an opening address from our event chair.

This session is hosted by a Reuters journalist under the Trust Principles 

Jared Isaacman, Administrator, NASA

Joey Roulette, Space Correspondent, Reuters

This session is hosted by a Reuters journalist under the Trust Principles

Jason Kim, CEO, Firefly Aerospace

Joey Roulette, Space Correspondent, Reuters

Grab your coffee, head to our networking zones, and make the most of this dedicated time to make peer-to-peer connections. Schedule one-to-one meetings via the event app, check out live demos from our partners, or join an expo tour to hear from some of our key exhibitors across our main expo categories.

·        Orchestrate sensing, communications, processing, autonomy, and control across domains, shifting missions from standalone platforms to resilient, integrated architectures

·        Explore shared investment in technology, manufacturing capacity, workforce, and supply chains to outpace demand and reduce risk ahead of traditional acquisition cycles

·        Shift from delivering components to reducing integration complexity and shortening timelines, becoming trusted partners that field capability faster

Mitch Stevison, President & CEO, Frontgrade

·        Evaluate how rapid-fire software patches can defend dual-use constellations against electronic warfare and cyber-spoofing in ways that hardware-heavy systems cannot.

·        Define the requirement for an open-architecture software standard that allows commercial startups to "plug and play" their apps into existing government-controlled orbital platforms.

·        Establish a framework for "Verified Autonomy," ensuring that dual-use AI can be trusted to make split-second operational decisions without constant human-in-the-loop oversight from ground crews.

Bridgit Mendler, CEO, Northwood Space

Moderator: Novaspace

Matt Schmidgall, CEO, ExLabs

·        Confront the tension between new regional laws like the EU Space Act and the industry's need for a frictionless, borderless orbital economy.

·        Assess whether the rise of domestic space policies creates essential safety guardrails or simply acts as a protectionist barrier to global entry.

·        Define what responsible orbital citizenship looks like in a crowded sky and how the private sector can lead on sustainability before regulation stifles growth

James Mason, Chief Space Officer, Planet

Emile DeRijk, CEO, Swissto12

Audrey Schaffer, Senior Vice President, Global Policy and Government Strategy, Slingshot Aerospace

Pick up your lunch and join a table with your curated peer circle to meet likeminded professionals. It's a relaxed, role-aligned lunch designed for real conversations, actionable takeaways, and long-term connections.

Hosted by Manufacturo and SIFT

·        Align procurement standards between NASA, NOAA, and the US Spaceforce so commercial vendors can bid on "platform-based" contracts that serve multiple government agencies simultaneously.

·        Navigate the shift to Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) to bypass traditional R&D "valleys of death" and secure contracts faster.

·        Prioritize 90% capability today over 100% in the distant future, establishing rapid deployment as a core mission requirement for both scientific exploration and national security

Paula Trimble, VP Public Policy, Muon Space

Moderator: Tiffany Hixson, Director, Government Contractor Solutions, BakerTilly

·        Establish a universal baseline for laser transceivers to ensure satellites from different vendors can talk to each other without specialized hardware.

·        Integrate LEO, MEO, and GEO satellites into a single mesh network to eliminate data delays and unlock 6-terabit global capacity.

·        Solve the weather and tracking issues that plague laser links by developing hybrid protocols that automatically switch paths to keep the data flowing.

Moderator: Jordon Fletcher, Chief Engineer, Sierra Space

·        Confront the legal grey zone of what happens to private satellites and their operators when commercial assets are used in sovereign defense missions or grey-zone conflicts.

·        Determine the fair price of risk: how much should government compensate or insure commercial partners for loss in a contested orbit?

·        Explore whether a universal code of conduct is achievable by 2028 or if private operators must act as active participants in sovereign defense.

Charles Cynamon, President, Telesat Government Solutions

Ian Canning, CEO, Eutelsat Network Solutions

·        Deploy onboard AI to give Golden Dome satellites the autonomy to detect and kill cyber threats instantly without waiting for ground instructions.

·        Bridge the gap between manufacturers and operators to ensure there are no single points of failure in the missile shield’s data links.

·        Establish space-ready patching and incident response rules that keep the shield operational during a live attack.

El Gardner, National Security Space Principal, L3Harris

Megan Tremer, President, Teledyne Space Imaging

Take a break from the debates to grab a coffee and explore the Tech Showcase, where the stilted expo floor is replaced by hands-on looks at the hardware and code defining the software-first satellite era. 

An exclusive session for our board to identify 2027’s most disruptive topics, ensuring we remain the definitive knowledge-sharing engine for senior leaders across industry, investment, and government.

Start the day right with a 5k run alongside like-minded peers. Explore the areas at your own pace and build camaraderie with the other participants in a relaxed and run environment. 

We can't wait for our very first Women in Space breakfast in 2026! This is a ground-breaking and dynamic forum open to all attendees to share ideas, trends and experiences to create momentum within the women in space community.  
 
Carol Craig, CEO, Sidus Space 

Arrive refreshed and ready to go for a high-action Day 2—grab a coffee, catch up with peers, and ensure you're in your seat on time for the morning’s first mission-critical debates.

·        How edge computing turns EO from passive collection into real-time autonomous intelligence.

·        Technical + AI/ML requirements for "Insight-as-a-Service" delivered directly from orbit.

·        Barriers: bandwidth scarcity, latency constraints, and scaling to a profitable SaaS model.

Ann Stevens, CEO, ICEYE US

·        Tackle EU Space Act-related mandates affecting US operators serving EU markets.

·        Roadmap toward US–EU "Regulatory Equivalence."

·        Scale into allied markets while navigating extraterritorial inspections vs. ITAR/EAR constraints.

Courtney Stadd, Executive Vice President, Beyond Earth Institute

·        Move from satellites as solo processors to fleet-level distributed architectures for storage and computing.

·        Plan for a future where satellites deliver final intelligence outputs (not raw data), reducing reliance on massive ground stations.

·        Vote: essential backbone of the new economy—or an expensive trap?

Jonny Dyer, CEO, Muon Space

Andrew Rush, CEO, Star Catcher

Justus Kilian, Partner, Space Capital

Moderator: Dave Cavossa, CEO, CSF

·        Identify critical dependencies on Chinese components and execute a transition strategy to trusted, Western-aligned hardware without compromising the speed of 2026 defense missions

·        Implement rigorous "Clean Space" protocols to shield sensitive commercial research, such as microgravity pharma or semiconductor breakthroughs, from state-sponsored intellectual property theft

·        Deploy quantum-resistant encryption across commercial gateways to ensure that dual-use assets remain invisible to adversarial decryption efforts as they transition through contested zones

·        Establish clear protocols for when a commercial satellite must execute evasive maneuvers to avoid kinetic threats, balancing the cost of fuel depletion against mission survival.

·        Negotiate standardized government insurance frameworks to compensate commercial operators for the loss or damage of private assets when they are utilized in sovereign defense operations.

·        Stress-test the ability of a commercial fleet to automatically switch to a secure, resilient "Dual-Use" mesh network the moment traditional ground-links are compromised by electronic warfare

·      Orbital congestion risk and whether debris removal is viable business or mandatory cost.
·      Live poll: should poor de-orbit plans be banned from high-value orbits by 2028?
·      Incentives to solve the "tragedy of the commons" and keep orbits navigable.

·       Align on a co-existence protocol that prevents high-power satellite downlinks from interfering with terrestrial 5G towers in dense urban borders.
·       Establish the "Owner of the Subscriber" hierarchy between Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and Satellite providers for non-emergency 5G data.
·       Stress-test the 2027 link-budget - determining if we can realistically deliver high-speed data to unmodified handsets without massive, unscalable apertures.
 

Daniel Gizinski, President of Satellite & Space Communications Segment, Comtech

Mark Boggett, CEO, Seraphim

Moderator: Novaspace