Press and Media Resources

UCF will host a master class series focused on practical learning, real-world application, and career-relevant insight. This is designed for executive attendees who want deep insights and applicable tools, frameworks, and next steps they can apply immediately.

• Business and Entrepreneurship in Space
  Wednesday, January 28 | 1:00–2:00 PM
• Surviving Off-Earth: Making Space Missions a Success
  Thursday, January 29 | 10:30–11:30 AM
• Staying Alive in Space - The Science of Human Survival Beyond Earth
  Thursday, January 29 | 2:00–3:00 PM
• Hospitality, Tourism, and Thriving in Space
  Friday, January 30 | 10:30–11:30 AM

Room: W230D

Bill Nye will keynote the Day 1 Closing Keynote How the Nation's Science Shapes Commercial Opportunity on January 29 at 4 PM ET. The full keynote lineup includes:

• Camille Bergin, Founder and CEO, Modulate Media
• Chris Davenport, Author and CBS News Contributor
• Christyl C. Johnson, Ph.D., Co-Founder and General Partner, Andromeda Ventures
• Brian Miske, Principal and Americas Space Lead, KPMG US
• Bill Nye, CEO, The Planetary Society
• Clayton Turner, Operating Partner, Andromeda Ventures

Commercial Space Week will host a Space Community Happy Hour on Thursday, January 29 (6:00–9:00 PM) at the Rosen Centre lobby bar, creating an informal setting for professionals across the space ecosystem to connect beyond the conference floor.

The evening is designed to bring together leaders from the space sector alongside adjacent industries such as simulation and training, AR/VR, digital engineering, and other enabling technologies that increasingly intersect with space missions and operations. By lowering the barrier to entry and encouraging open conversation, the event aims to spark new relationships and cross-industry collaboration.

The Space Community Happy Hour underscores Commercial Space Week’s role as more than a conference series—serving as a gathering point where the broader space community comes together to build connections that extend well beyond scheduled sessions.
 

Commercial Space Week will debut a new International Lounge located on the expo floor at Booth 8360, designed as a shared collaboration space for international attendees to connect, meet, and do business throughout the event.

The lounge features a mix of flexible seating and meeting areas, along with three turnkey demo stations that international companies can use to showcase products and services supporting space missions, infrastructure, and enabling technologies. Designed as an active working environment, the space encourages informal meetings, live demonstrations, and spontaneous conversations between international participants and the broader Commercial Space Week audience.

More than a national pavilion, the International Lounge is intentionally structured as a multinational, open collaboration hub—a place where companies, agencies, and organizations from across the global space community can engage with one another on equal footing. The space reflects Commercial Space Week’s role as an international marketplace, fostering cross-border collaboration, partnership, and shared progress in the next phase of space commercialization.

Commercial Space Week will feature the SIM Pavilion - Spatial Intelligence & Modeling, a new show-floor pavilion in booth 8084 presented in partnership with the National Center for Simulation, highlighting companies developing advanced simulation, modeling, and AR/VR technologies increasingly critical to modern space missions.

The pavilion will bring together companies whose products and services support mission planning, digital engineering, training, and decision-making across complex, high-consequence environments. While rooted in simulation and immersive technologies, the capabilities on display are directly applicable to space system design, launch and on-orbit operations, human performance, and mission rehearsal for both government and commercial operators.

By integrating spatial intelligence and modeling technologies directly onto the Commercial Space Week show floor, the SIM Pavilion underscores the growing convergence between space operations and the digital environments used to design, test, train, and operate in space. 
 

Commercial Space Week will feature the SpaceCom Second Stage, a dedicated stage and presentation area located on the exhibit hall floor at Booth 7961, designed to deliver high-impact, forward-looking content in an open and accessible setting.

The Second Stage is the home of TinaTalks—short, lecture-style presentations centered on Technology, Innovation, and Advancement—bringing visionary ideas and emerging perspectives directly to the show floor. These concise sessions are built to spark curiosity, introduce new ways of thinking, and encourage conversation among attendees across government, commercial, and international space communities.

In addition to TinaTalks, the Second Stage will host curated SpaceCom Second Stage content focused on four priority sectors shaping the future of space: Manufacturing for Space, Space Mining, Humans to Mars, and AI in and for Space. By placing this content in the heart of the exhibit hall and making it free and open to all attendees, Commercial Space Week reinforces its commitment to broad access, idea exchange, and real-time engagement across the global space ecosystem.

Commercial Space Week will host the launch of Andromeda Ventures, a new venture capital platform focused on mission-critical, dual-use technologies across space, defense, energy, health, and AI-enabled autonomy.

The firm will formally debut at SpaceCom | Space Congress with a keynote fireside chat featuring Co-Founder and General Partner Dr. Christyl C. Johnson, alongside Operating Partners Clayton Turner and Daniel Fata, examining how validated government technology needs translate into scalable commercial capabilities—and how private capital accelerates that transition.

The launch underscores Commercial Space Week’s role as a convening point where government demand signals, private investment, and commercial execution intersect to bring new institutions and technologies to market.

For the second consecutive year, the Astronaut Memorial Foundation will present its Spirit of Space Award during Commercial Space Week, with the award ceremony opening the Space Mobility Conference on Wednesday morning, January 28.

The Spirit of Space Award honors a leader whose career has fundamentally strengthened assured access to space—not through a single mission or breakthrough, but through sustained institution-building, stewardship, and long-term vision. The award recognizes individuals who have worked behind the scenes to ensure space remains safe, resilient, sustainable, and reliable for civil, military, and commercial users alike.

Presented during Commercial Space Week, the award reflects the Astronaut Memorial Foundation’s mission to honor those lost in the pursuit of space exploration by recognizing leaders who carry that responsibility forward. It celebrates careers devoted to building the structures, policies, partnerships, and capabilities that make modern spaceflight possible—and protect its future.

CONFERS will host a dedicated CONFERS Member Meeting Hub during Commercial Space Week, providing an on-site space for members to convene, collaborate, and advance real discussions throughout the event.

Located within the Commercial Space Week footprint, the CONFERS meeting room will serve as a working environment for member meetings, small group discussions, and focused coordination sessions—allowing CONFERS participants to leverage the energy, attendance, and cross-industry presence of the broader Commercial Space Week community while continuing mission-driven conversations on rendezvous, proximity operations, and on-orbit servicing.

By co-locating active member meetings alongside the conference program, CONFERS brings live collaboration into the event itself—reinforcing Commercial Space Week as not just a place to talk about the future of space, but a place where organizations are actively shaping it in real time.

Room: W230C

We are thrilled to announce that AFCEA Space Coast, in strategic partnership with SpaceCom | Space Congress, will host the 2nd Annual Acquisition Panel Series on Thursday, January 29, 2026, at 12:00 PM in the Tangerine Room of the main ballroom.

This year’s featured session, the NASA-led Acquisition Overview of Civilian Space Mission Programs, will spotlight senior acquisition leaders from NASA Headquarters and Kennedy Space Center. These panels will provide exclusive insights into upcoming Long-Range Acquisition Forecasts (LRAFs), equipping industry professionals with the knowledge to align with future mission needs.

This event builds on the momentum of last year’s inaugural SpaceCom-AFCEA collaboration, which introduced the vision for the “Space Grove”—a Brevard County-based innovation hub designed to foster quarterly engagement and strengthen alignment across DoD, NASA, and Commercial Space initiatives.

Together, AFCEA and SpaceCom are forging a long-term alliance to accelerate procurement timelines, streamline contracting processes, and cultivate a cooperative ecosystem that bridges government and industry. Your participation and insights are vital to this mission, and we would be honored to have you join our engaged audience of industry leaders, government stakeholders, and defense professionals.

Thank you for your continued support of AFCEA Space Coast and the broader space industry community.

T-Minus, the leading daily space industry podcast from N2K, is returning to Commercial Space Week. Throughout the week, the T-Minus team will broadcast live from the exhibit hall, delivering exclusive interviews, daily recaps, and insider insights straight from the heart of the event.

Lost at Lagrange is a fast-paced, facilitator-led tabletop leadership wargame debuting at Commercial Space Week that places participants in a constrained space operations crisis near a Lagrange point. Designed for both government and commercial space professionals, the game challenges players to make irreversible decisions about which systems, capabilities, and priorities to protect when resources, time, and information are limited.

This is not a traditional wargame about winning. Instead, Lost at Lagrange is built to surface real-world leadership judgment, mission prioritization, and tradeoff decision-making under pressure—skills increasingly critical as space operations grow more congested, contested, and commercially integrated. The experience is intentionally short, immersive, and accessible, requiring no prior wargaming background.

The game will run continuously throughout the conference day in multiple interactive demo formats, with rapid-play experiences lasting just a few minutes and allowing attendees to drop in and engage on their own schedule. For those looking to go deeper, longer, structured wargame sessions will be offered by sign-up at scheduled times (10:00–10:30, 12:30–1:00, and 2:30–3:00). These extended sessions provide a more complete gameplay experience followed by a brief facilitated discussion, offering deeper insight into the leadership and decision dynamics shaping modern space operations.

Visit the Delta 10 team along the front wall of the exhibit hall to play and sign up for the in-depth games.