During the International Astronautical Conference (IAC) which was held in Bremen last week, some 16 Dutch space companies and organisations presented themselves in the NL Space booth. From these 16 exhibitors, 13 came from the West Holland region, showing that indeed some 80% of Dutch space activities take place in this region. Newcomer was Space Campus Noordwijk, launched and presented by the municipality of Noordwijk and the Province of Zuid-Holland.
Space Campus Noordwijk, just a stone’s throw from the ESA’s largest research facility ESTEC, will house dedicated facilities for testing small satellites and space instruments, a centre for earth observation data applications and training, a virtual laboratory in support of space engineering and a state-of-the-art makerspace for prototyping and small satellite production. For meetings, campus companies can use a completely new international meeting facility for space professionals, to be built on the ESTEC site.
The national government, the Province of Zuid-Holland and the Municipality of Noordwijk will invest over € 25 million in the development of Space Campus Noordwijk. ESTEC, the Galileo Reference Centre (GRC) and the Space Business Incubator Centre are partners in the project, as are many Dutch companies and institutions.
The IAC is the largest annual international space conference in the world, with an extensive exhibition attached to it. Space organizations and industry discuss future projects with each other and show the world the newest space-high-tech. Participating companies and knowledge institutes from the West Holland region were: Hyperion Technologies, Delft University of Technology, S [&] T, CGI, ATG, Airbus, Cosine, ISIS, TNO Space, Airborne, T-Minus Engineering, SatSearch, Dawn Aerospace, Space Campus Noordwijk, SpaceNed and The Netherlands Space Office (NSO).
On Tuesday evening NL-Space organized a VIP dinner for the participating Dutch delegates and their (potential) international clients. The event took place in the historical Handelskammer Bremen, and started with some inspiring words on the Dutch space footprint by Marc Hendrikse, Chairman topsector High Tech Systems & Materials, Mr. Wepke Kingma, Dutch Ambassador to Germany, Harm van de Wetering, Director Netherlands Space Office and Dutch astronaut André Kuipers.