International Astronautical congress in Prague promoted Czech Space
61st International Astronautical Congress (IAC) that was held in the Prague Congress Centre, attracted over three thousand participants from 79 countries around the world. Congress also caught the attention of almost 70 of Czech and foreign media and journalists.
"We are very pleased that the congress was a success. We assume that not only thanks to the number of participants, visitors and media interest, but also due to complimentary reviews that we have received from our foreign partners who have much more experience in organizing similar events," says the director of Czech Space Office Jan Kolář and he adds: „The congress and similar events help to make the Czech aeronautics more visible."
There were also 542 of student participants and 283 of young professionals that work in many diverse fields of astronautics. There were 300 of exhibitors at 50 booths with a total area of 1250 square meters. There were 28 of symposia and the total number of presentations have exceeded 1500. Among the most prominent participants there were the director of NASA Charles Bolden, Roscosmos director Anatoly Perminov, director of ESA Jean-Jacques Dordain and JAXA director Keiji Tachikava. Congress was organised under the patronage of President Václav Klaus, Mayor of Prague Pavel Bém and the actual opening was personally attended by the Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Kocourek.
Czech Space was introduced at the conference by Czech Space Office booth. Other parts of the congress were also a special section for students and young generation, parliamentarians from different countries, a joint workshop of the UN and the International Astronautical Federation on the use of global navigation satellite systems for the good of mankind and its development, and last but not least, the exhibition of companies and national space agencies.
Among the interesting posts there were performances of Přemysl Štych on education in the Czech Republic in the field of Earth observation, Patrik Čermák on promising thermoelectric tellurides, doctor Milan Pospíšil on thirty years of experience with solar energy, Jaroslav Urbář on the compact and low-cost device for radiation measurement, Radek Peřestý on the use of very accurate accelerometer for orbit deviations detection, Professor Vladimír Kopal on the history of the International Academy of Astronautics, Ondřej Doule on the proposal for a residential module Habitat, professor Jan Jehlička on use of Raman spectroscopy for the extraterrestrial life searching in rocks or Matyáš Šanda on the project Hydronaut1. There were also one whole lecture dedicated to Czech aerospace sector, which hosted representatives of Czech academic institutions and industry.