First Wave of Featured Speakers Announced for IAC 2025

First up is Steven Freeland, one of the world’s most respected voices in space law. Freeland recently represented Australia at the United Nations, where he played a key role in legislative efforts to define the governance of space resources. His keynote, “It’s a Complicated Extraterrestrial World Out There: Does Consensus-based Multilateralism of Space Governance Still Work?”, couldn’t be more timely. As geopolitical tensions and commercial expansion intensify in orbit and beyond, Freeland’s insights will offer both clarity and provocation.

Leading the charge on space sustainability is Darren McKnight, a name synonymous with practical space operations. A veteran in space debris research and a Senior Technical Fellow at LeoLabs, McKnight brings decades of frontline experience managing the exponential rise in orbital congestion. His session, “The Space Triad – Practical Space Operations Framework,” offers a new lens on debris remediation and space traffic management. A must-attend for those committed to a resilient Earth hosting low-orbiting innovation in a sustainable way.

On the frontier of lunar navigation, Mauro Leonardi is an expert on improving satellite performance using pseudo-range rates and IMU sensors. Leonardi, an aerospace engineer affiliated with ESA’s Galileo program, has been quietly pushing the envelope on Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems designed for cislunar operations. With Artemis missions gaining pace, Leonardi’s insights are timely.

A brilliant inclusion, IAC 2025 Sydney featured speaker Joan Adrià Ruiz is co-lead of the Minarió Mission, a ground-breaking initiative to test NB-IoT connectivity via nanosatellites. Representing Europe’s next-gen telecom R&D community, Ruiz’s work bridges CubeSats with terrestrial 5G infrastructure – a vital enabler for scalable, global Internet-of-Things (IoT) solutions. His B2.6 session promises to demonstrate how testbeds like Minarió are not just proof-of-concepts but real-world technology accelerators.

From lunar comms to deep-space reliability, Nicola Linty of Politecnico di Torino is showcasing UST-Lite, a modular transponder for smallsats destined for the Moon and Mars. Linty is no stranger to building rugged systems for harsh environments – his work on low-resource GNSS alternatives has been crucial for missions operating well beyond Earth’s GPS bubble.

The smallsat revolution continues with Marco Di Clemente of Leonardo Labs, who will present on transforming satellite production through automation and factory-style workflows. Di Clemente’s “Innovative Space Factory” vision taps into the industrial playbook of Tesla and SpaceX, with a European twist – and could be pivotal in democratising access to constellations.

Distinguished academic voices are also in the IAF’s featured speaker lineup. Josep J. Masdemont, one of Europe’s foremost experts in orbital dynamics, will deliver the C1.6 Breakwell Lecture. His journey through libration point mechanics and mission design is a masterclass in celestial mechanics, particularly relevant as deep-space missions grow more ambitious.

The Paolo Santini Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Professor Pavel Trivailo of RMIT University, introducing structural inertial morphing – an elegant solution to spacecraft agility through shape-shifting structures. Trivailo’s research, while highly theoretical, could one day enable more responsive spacecraft attitude control with fewer mechanical parts.

Rounding out the IAF’s announcement is John Mankins, a luminary in space-based solar power, known for championing NASA’s SPS Alpha concepts. He’ll present the final report from the 2024–2025 Space Solar Power Study Project – a moment of reckoning on whether clean energy beamed from orbit is finally ready for terrestrial adoption.