Season greetings and short summary from the European Space Foundation.

Dear Members, Friends, Partners, and Guests of our events.?

On behalf of the entire team of the European Space Foundation, we would like to wish you all peace and tranquility. We sincerely hope the coming year will be a year of change and new rays of hope on the horizon for a better, shared future. For us, this passing year has brought a lot of exciting and new projects.?

In January this year, we entered the next phase of activities within the Polish?lunar consortium MIRRORES. The project aims to develop the MIRORES far-infrared spectroscope for mapping raw material deposits on the Silver Globe from orbit around the Moon, raw material deposits on the Silver Globe. In May, we received information about the selection of our project as a priority for the planned 2028 Polish Lunar Mission by POLSA Polska Agencja Kosmiczna | Polish Space Agency .

In April, together with our partners from InnovaSpace ace and Cumulus Association , we had an opportunity to launch the?Extraterrestrial Design Workshops?for students of art, design, and architecture during the Cumulus Antwerp 2023 Conference.?

We are also delighted to announce our partnership for the?Space Pride Fashion Gala?(SPFG), which will take place on the 16th of October 2024, during the IAC2024 in Milan. The event will be held at the MEET Digital Culture Center. The Space Pride Fashion Gala is where outer space meets pride parade - a fusion of art, culture, and technology. It is an exciting event highlighting the themes of diversity, empowerment, innovation, and breaking boundaries by blending elements of the space sector and the diverse identities within the LGBTQ+ community.?

The implementation of our flagship project, the European Rover Challenge , marked September, bringing together incredible personalities on-site and online. Once again, the event was a great success, and the next edition promises to be even more so. We have officially announced significant changes to the ERC project, which will be held in Krakow starting next year. Next year, the city of Polish kings will host the 10th-anniversary edition of ERC. We will see exciting solutions, such as introducing a new task named Construction and the cooperation of several teams at once. The International Astronautical Federation and Space Communications Alliance have already extended their patronage to the project.

In October, we had the opportunity to attend the?IAC 2023 Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, as a candidate to host the 77th IAC 2026 in Poznan, Poland. Many months of preparations, activities promoting Poland internationally, and cooperation with amazing people, partner organizations, and Polish government institutions resulted in our presence on the shortlist of potential event hosts, together with the Turkish Space Agency. Ultimately, the right to host IAC 2026 fell to our Turkish friends. Nevertheless, we plan to apply for the IAC again in 2024. Keep your fingers crossed.

October also saw fantastic news for us coming from the United States. European Space Foundation was selected by 普惠 and the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) as a winner of the?2023 Pratt & Whitney Global E-STEM Awards. Grants totaling $250,000 were awarded to 15 nonprofit organizations in 12 countries. Each group demonstrated a remarkable commitment to advancing environmental, science, technology, engineering, and math (E-STEM) education programs for underrepresented students ages 11–22.

Thus, we close the year full of energy, planning new projects and generating amazing ideas to support the space sector and work for the next generation of young engineers and scientists.?

Thank you for all that you were with us; you are, and you will be!

Happy Holidays and the New Year!?

Lukasz Wilczynski

President?

European Space Foundation??