8th IAA Planetary Defense Conference held in Vienna

The 8th edition of the IAA Planetary Defense Conference, organized by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), was held in Austria from April 3 to 7 at the Vienna International Centre.

This schedule for this year’s event featured more than 120 sessions, where the subject of planetary defense was discussed from a variety of perspectives. GMV participated in the exhibition area with two technical posters. The first poster explained the company’s contribution to HERA, which is the European component of a planetary defense action coordinated with NASA. The second poster described a study of options regarding the probe’s approach to the asteroid Apophis during that planetary defense mission.

During the four workshops held at the event, the subjects discussed included the contributions being made to planetary defense by ESA, NASA, and JAXA, along with new discoveries of near-Earth objects (NEOs), advances in their monitoring and characterization, the consequences and legal implications of a potential impact event, contingency plans being developed for a case of impact, approaches to deviation and disruption, and strategies for awareness-raising and communication, among others.

During the conference GMV also participated in a ceremony to present awards to three students who were judged to be the authors of the best technical articles.