The conference will take place on 23-24 June 2025 at ESA's Astronaut Centre in Cologne.
Space exploration is undergoing rapid change. Major government space agencies are pursuing ambitious plans to send humans to the moon again by 2027, with further missions to Mars to follow. At the same time, the rise of the private space industry is driving the commercialisation of the Earth's orbit and opening up new economic opportunities, for example in the field of space tourism. More than 10,000 space technology companies are now active worldwide and the global value of the space economy is expected to exceed the 1 trillion euro mark by the end of the decade. Against this backdrop, the path seems paved for a future where space travel and life in space will become accessible to a much larger and more diverse group of people than ever before.
This new era of space exploration will be driven by a new generation of technologies that are tailored to the changing needs of a broader range of users. To be successful, research and development activities in this area must become more accessible and involve stakeholders beyond the traditional aerospace engineering fields. In this technological environment, for example, aspects such as holistic user experience, long-term physical and mental well-being in extreme environments and human-AI collaboration are taking centre stage.
In 2020, the MIT Media Lab launched the annual SpaceCHI workshop as a platform to advance precisely this branch of research. SpaceCHI has now expanded into a conference and will take place for the first time in Europe on 23-24 June 2025 at the European Space Agency (ESA) in Cologne. With keynote speeches from astronauts and leading space experts, the conference offers a unique opportunity to contribute to the development of new space technologies.
With a broad interdisciplinary focus, SpaceCHI welcomes submissions that address the design and utilisation of technologies for space. All accepted papers will be published by Dagstuhl Publishing as part of the Open Access Series in Informatics.
"Conferences like SpaceCHI are important platforms for interdisciplinary collaboration and promote a more inclusive and dynamic space industry," says Leonie Bensch, SpaceCHI chair and MIT Media Lab scientist.
"The conference offers a unique opportunity to explore how new technologies such as virtual and extended reality can reshape and shape the future of space. ", adds Tommy Nilsson, SpaceCHI Chair and scientist at Fraunhofer FIT.
With this in mind, contributions are encouraged from scientists from various fields, including - but not limited to - human-computer interaction, aerospace engineering, robotics, psychology, medicine and space architecture.
Important dates:
- Submission deadline: 31. June 2025
For more information and submission guidelines, please visit https://spacechi.media.mit.edu/ .
Dates