The Aerospace Corporation is proud to sponsor and participate in 2021 ASCEND, a hybrid live and virtual conference powered by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). ASCEND promotes the collaborative, interdisciplinary, outcomes-driven community of professionals, students, and serious space enthusiasts around the world who are accelerating humanity’s progress toward an off-world future.

2021 ASCEND features live online programming November 8-10 and 15-17, as well as live conference programming in Las Vegas from November 15-17 and a live satellite event in Washington, D.C. on November 15. Online programming will be available on demand for the duration of the conference.

Aerospace speakers will moderate or contribute technical expertise and insight on topics and concepts that will shape the future of space throughout the ASCEND program. Kara Cunzeman, Aerospace’s lead futurist for strategic foresight, joins ASCEND’s opening live macro session, Visions and Inspirations for the Future: Building Worlds That Do Not Yet Exist, on Monday, Nov. 15.

Join Aerospace for the following sessions at ASCEND (all times Pacific, all available online):

MONDAY, NOV. 8

• 9:15-10:15 a.m.: Aligning Government Demand to Commercial Supply to Advance U.S. Leadership in Space (featuring Defense Investor Network, NASA, Redwire Space and SpaceX)

TUESDAY, NOV. 9

• 10:30-11:30 a.m.: Policy, Technology and Economic Considerations for Active Debris Removal (featuring Astroscale, European Space Agency, sur l’espace PLLC and The Aerospace Corporation’s Space Safety Institute)
• 10:30-11:30 a.m.: Diversity & Inclusion Across the Nation’s FFRDCs (featuring Southwest Research Institute and MIT Lincoln Laboratory)
• 11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: FFRDCs and UARCs United to Collaborate on Government Customer Needs (featuring MITRE, Draper Laboratory, NASA JPL, MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Johns Hopkins APL)
• 11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Growing the Space Economy with Spaceflight Safety (featuring BryceTech, Commercial Spaceflight Federation, NASA and Federal Aviation Administration)
• 11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Things Blow Up: Navigating the Physics of Failure in Space (featuring NASA, U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command and Rocket Lab)
• 11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Cybersecurity [Technical Session]

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 10

• 8:00-9:00 a.m.:  Space as a Critical Infrastructure (featuring U.S. Space Force, NASA, MIT and Northrop Grumman)
• 9:15-10:15 a.m.: Model-Based Systems Engineering [Technical Session]
• 10:30-11:30 a.m.: Digital Engineering Accelerators
• 11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Future Space Industrial Base 2021 (featuring U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command, Cateni and BryceTech)

MONDAY, NOV. 15

• 7:30-9:00 a.m.: Visions and Inspirations for the Future: Building Worlds That Do Not Yet Exist

TUESDAY, NOV. 16

• 2:15-3:15 p.m.: Small Satellites IV (Technical Session) (featuring Space Technology Center, Military Technical College, ULA, University of Arizona, Tucson and University of Colorado, Boulder)

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 17

• 2:15-3:15 p.m.: Space Domain Awareness Technologies to Facilitate Space Traffic Management (featuring Numerica, OneWeb, LeoLabs, Novarum Tech and Federal Communications Commission)
• 3:30-4:30 p.m.: Horizon Forecasting: Human Spaceflight Safety Considerations (featuring NASA, Canadian Space Agency and MIT)