iSpaRo conference: a first for the space robotics industry

SnT’s first International Conference on Space Robotics (iSpaRo) brought together experts from all over the world in Luxembourg’s Neimënster Abbey. The event welcomed four keynote speakers from NASA-JPL, Tohoku University in Japan, ESA, and King’s College of London.
 
From 24 to June 27th, iSpaRo gathered more than 200 attendees who heard the outstanding results of 56 fully peer-reviewed papers. These papers came from a total of 72 submissions, representing a rejection rate of 22% for the conference.
 
 Wide media coverage
 
The daily newspaper Le Quotidien attended iSpaRo and published on June 25th a piece focused on Dr Vandi Verma’s speech in Luxembourg. This NASA expert brightened the event with a keynote lecture called “Insights from Decades on Mars Rover Operations and Innovations for Future Missions”.
 
The daily news website Chronicle.lu also covered iSpaRo on June 26th, and more recently, Silicon Luxembourg covered it on July 1st.
 
“This first edition of iSpaRo went beyond the expectations of the organisers and participants. I’m delighted to have created this unique conference that can put together experts from all different stakeholders of Space Robotics, keeping strong scientific and innovative content”, reacted SnT Prof. Miguel Olivares-Mendez, founder and general chair of iSpaRo.
 
The success of the first iSpaRo has paved the way for future iterations of the conference. Starting from 2025 the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in collaboration with NASA-JPL, will be the main organisers of the iSpaRo’25, under the coordination of Prof. Miguel Olivares-Mendez.