The Luxembourg Space Café offered a chance to meet new European Space Resources Innovation Centre director Dr Kathryn Hadler when it hosted its largest event yet during Space Resources Week.
On 3 May, the ground floor of Kirchberg eatery El Barrio was filled with around 300 of the sharpest space brains in Europe who had spent the day in conferences.
Dr Hadler, who has an expertise in mineral processing and beneficiation, was appointed to develop ESRIC into an internationally recognised research group that will advance scientific discovery and technology development in in-situ resource utilisation.
Speaking after the event, she told Silicon Luxembourg: “I’m new to the Luxembourg scene, so it’s very nice to meet people and tell them what ESRIC is about. Our main activity is in all the pillars: business, community and knowledge management. But one of the big growth areas we see is in research. I’m from a research background and what I’m really keen to see is that we really start to see growth in research in space resources-related activity.”
The event, which was coordinated by Antonino Salmeri, a doctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg, also featured enthusiastic presentations from director of human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency David Parker, and director of research at France’s national scientific research centre, the CNRS, Patrick Michel.
The former spoke about the horizon goal of Mars and ESA’s contribution to space activities. He said: “We are going back and forward to the moon and Euruope is part of that both in science and technology but also with European astronauts. We’re contributing six European service modules to provide propulsion, water and oxygen for the next generation of lunar astronauts.”
ESRIC was established by the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA), the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and the European Space Agency as partner, in Luxembourg, in August 2020. Dr Hadler took over from interim director Mathias Link on 1 April 2022.
