Use this handbook before a presentation, between sessions, when somebody mentions something unfamiliar, or at the end of the day when you want to remember who you met. You are representing eurus.space, but you are also here as a junior computer-engineering student learning how the international space community actually works.
The rest of this handbook is reference material. You do not need to read it from top to bottom during the congress.
Check your presentation time, choose two or three sessions you genuinely want to attend, and leave room for conversations that happen unexpectedly.
If you meet somebody interesting, understand what they do before explaining what we do.
It is completely fine to say, “I’d rather check with Patrick than give you the wrong answer.” Precision is better than improvisation.
The two talks have deliberately different expectations. CAIRN is the paper closest to your own technical background. FIRN/TARN is a team presentation that has been structured so you can deliver it confidently without becoming the thermal-system specialist.
Arrive early enough that the room, presentation system and session chair are no longer unknowns when your turn begins. The objective is a calm, clear delivery — not theatrical performance.
Comms–Compute Co-Design for Cislunar Operations. You should understand why intermittent communications, limited power and distributed lunar assets change where computation happens and how CAIRN decides what to compute, transmit, store or defer.
You only need the basic logic: lunar water has to be stored and kept useful across harsh operating cycles, and FIRN/TARN provide water reserve and thermal utility functions. The presentation script will be written for you. Rehearse it aloud until the pacing is comfortable.
Think of CAIRN as a practical operating problem rather than a collection of acronyms. Lunar machines will not always have a good link to Earth, power is finite, and not every piece of raw data deserves to be transmitted immediately. A useful system therefore needs to decide what can be processed locally, what must be sent, what can wait, and how operations continue safely when communications or resources degrade.
If someone pushes into detailed communications standards, flight qualification, radiation-hard computing, exact power budgets or claims outside the paper, answer what you know and separate it from future engineering work.
Your job is to deliver the prepared presentation clearly and understand enough of the system that the words make sense. You are not expected to reproduce Patrick’s thermal analysis or invent answers to detailed engineering questions.
The final slide can provide Patrick’s contact / QR route for detailed follow-up. Basic questions — what FIRN/TARN do, why water storage matters, where they sit after WATERIG/OASIS, and what downstream systems use the stored water — you should answer yourself.
You do not need a memorised sales pitch. Understand the logic well enough to explain it in your own words. We are developing lunar infrastructure around useful resources, especially water: how it is captured, stored, allocated and eventually used for mobility, power, thermal services and other operations. CAIRN adds the intelligence and coordination layer needed when those assets become distributed.
“eurus.space is developing lunar infrastructure around water — from resource handling and storage through mobility and autonomous operations.”
“The basic idea is that extracting water is not enough. It has to move through a usable system. WATERIG and OASIS handle resources, FIRN/TARN preserve useful water and thermal capacity, WAVE and FLARE turn water into mobility, and CAIRN helps distributed assets coordinate when power and communications are constrained.”
The purpose of the documents is not to make you memorise the company. Each file should answer a specific need. Read the three marked essentials before your first presentation; use the rest when you need context.
IAC is too large to “cover.” The useful strategy is to protect your two presentations, attend a small number of sessions that are unusually relevant to your own development or eurus.space, then spend real time talking to people. Oct 8 is your main exploration and networking day.
This is the recommended plan, not a command to fill every hour. The priority labels mean: P1 = make a real effort to attend; P2 = useful if energy and timing are good; Watch later = use the official IAF recording rather than creating a conflict. Programme information was checked on 5 October 2026; room changes should always be confirmed in the official IAC app/programme.
CAIRN day. Do not turn the afternoon into another full conference day. Deliver CAIRN, attend one high-value follow-up session, make a few conversations, then go back to the hotel and prepare FIRN/TARN.
D1 / D2 / D3. Host-country perspective on sovereign capability, deep-space ambitions and the changing space ecosystem.
Your main technical presentation.
D3. NASA / Lockheed Martin / Airbus / Thales Alenia Space. Listen for integration, reuse, crew-system lessons and how major programmes talk about evidence.
Watch: Jeremy Parsons · Wolfgang Duerr · Annamaria Piras · Kirk ShiremanESA / ispace / JAXA if convenient.
FIRN/TARN day. Useful morning and early-afternoon sessions are possible, but from about 14:45 onward the presentation takes precedence.
D3. Especially relevant to the question eurus.space keeps asking: where does real value come from, who are the anchor customers, and when does frontier infrastructure become an economy?
Listen for: procurement · real value · resource utilisation · regulationD1 / D2. Young and emerging leaders discussing cislunar nodes, networks and logistics. Very close to your own stage of career and to the eurus.space infrastructure thesis.
D3. TLM-1, water migration, permanently shadowed regions, thermal mapping and ISRU context. Speaker: Burak Yağlıoğlu, TÜBİTAK UZAY.
Prepared-script presentation. Basic logic + calm delivery.
Main intelligence + networking day. Both committed presentations are finished. This is the day to walk the exhibition properly, follow interesting people, and attend the sessions closest to CAIRN, lunar infrastructure and reusable services.
D1 / D2. Commercial lunar ecosystems, public-private relationships and international strategy.
Watch: Takeshi Hakamada · Sara Pastor · Charlotte Nassey · Seiko ShirasakaHall 23. Standardised fluid/refuelling interfaces and in-space servicing.
People: Jacob Geer · Tejaswi T. · Sebastian Hill · Sam FurnessG3. NASA with Blue Origin, Intuitive Machines, Toyota, SpaceX and ESA.
Watch: Sam Scimemi · Jacki Cortese · Justin Kugler · Tetsuya Kanata · Caitlin Smith · Didier SchmittUse the booth mission below. Prioritise one useful human connection per P1 booth over collecting brochures.
D3. Lunar-night survival, resilient power and mission architecture.
Watch: Michael Nord · Firefly AerospaceD3. Compute, communications, power, thermal management, resilience, autonomy and interoperability.
Final conference day + departure day. Attend the sessions with clear CAIRN/LUI value, reconnect with the best people, then leave with enough time to begin the post-IAC trip without rushing.
G3. Interoperability, resilient communications, space/air/ground integration and cyber-physical threats.
Watch: Laurent Jaffart · Gunes Karabulut Kurt · Murat Uysal · Elif UysalHall 5. Connects lunar surface science, infrastructure and economic development.
G3. Standard interfaces, viable services, servicing, assembly/manufacturing, policy and market demand.
Watch: Charity Weeden · Holger Krag · Andrew FaiolaThe first-pass route below is arranged roughly by booth code so Thomas can move efficiently through the exhibition. It is intentionally not “every exhibitor.” It is the eurus.space / Thomas priority list. Verify the hall map in the IAC app before walking because exhibition layouts and temporary stage events can change.
Lunar exploration, robotics, infrastructure and programme context. Ask who works closest to lunar surface systems, ISRU, logistics or reusable utilities.
Lander transport, rovers, lunar comm/navigation and cislunar services.People to recognise: Julien Lamamy · Kate Breach · Abbie Hutty · Charlotte Nassey.
Small satellite platforms, Earth-observation data and AI/data context. More useful for Thomas's own engineering career curiosity than core lunar strategy.
Space engineering, robotics, mission operations and in-orbit R&D. Ask how they turn research concepts into contracted mission capability.
Treat this as an ecosystem stop, not one booth. Prioritise Space Quarters for lunar construction / regolith assembly and ArkEdge Space for distributed spacecraft and operations.ArkEdge CEO Takayoshi Fukuyo joins the Japan–UAE pavilion event on Oct 8.
Walk it once. Relevant names include OHB, DLR, Tesat, Jena-Optronik, EXOLAUNCH and others. Stop only where the technology genuinely catches your attention.
This one is especially for Thomas personally. Ask what skills a junior computer engineer should build for European space roles; walk-in career/CV conversations may be available.
Mission design, operations, orbit determination, data fusion and safety workflows — useful CAIRN/operations context.People onsite: Tilmann Packheiser · Sven Kevin Flegel · Laura Brady · Floris Weijand.
Important because Luxembourg remains one of the strongest institutional homes for space-resources activity. Odysseus Space and Amphinicy are among companies represented. Ask which current Luxembourg programmes are most active around lunar resources and infrastructure.
RAFTI / GRASP and refuelling interfaces. If no dedicated booth is easy to find, use the Oct 8 ASTRAL paper to approach the team afterward.Jacob Geer · Tejaswi T. · Sebastian Hill · Sam Furness.
The first Turkish lunar mission is directly studying the lunar water lifecycle. Try to meet Burak Yağlıoğlu even if you only have a short conversation and exchange contact details.
Water-based propulsion is unusually relevant to WAVE. Their team is at IAC with WaterCube heading toward an in-orbit demonstration.Look for Ivan Nizzola and Carolina Gómez Sánchez.
NASA, ESA, JAXA and other agencies define missions, fund research, set architectures and requirements, and often create the programmes that industry later competes to support.
Large aerospace companies integrate complex systems, own major contracts and work through long supplier chains. Listen for what they consider mature enough to buy or integrate.
These are often easier to speak with and closer to the same problems eurus.space is exploring. They can become collaborators, suppliers, competitors or simply useful peers.
Do not underestimate this group. Some of the people Thomas meets here may become researchers, founders, agency engineers or programme leads over the next decade.
Most good conversations should not begin with a pitch. Ask what the other person is working on, why they came to the session, or what problem their team is trying to solve. If there is a natural connection to CAIRN or eurus.space, explain it then. If there is not, a good conversation is still useful.
Connect on LinkedIn the same day and mention one specific thing you discussed. A short personal note is much better than a generic connection request.
Listen for repeated problems rather than isolated buzzwords. If several unrelated people complain about the same operational difficulty, interface gap, testing bottleneck or missing capability, that is useful information. Also notice where agencies and companies appear to have real budgets versus where the conversation is still mainly conceptual.
Use this as a lookup rather than homework. If a term appears in a conversation and you are unsure, check it later instead of pretending.
In-situ resource utilisation: using material already at the destination rather than carrying everything from Earth. On the Moon this commonly means water ice, oxygen-bearing regolith and local construction material.
Permanently Shadowed Region. Areas, especially near the lunar poles, that receive little or no direct sunlight and can preserve very cold volatile deposits including water ice.
Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking. Communications designed to survive long delays and broken links by storing and forwarding data when a path becomes available.
NASA-led interoperability framework for lunar communications and navigation services. CAIRN should be thought of as complementary operational/compute logic rather than a replacement for LunaNet.
Positioning, Navigation and Timing — the ability to know where assets are and maintain a reliable time reference.
Rendezvous and Proximity Operations: the navigation, sensing and control required for spacecraft to safely approach and operate near one another.
Technology Readiness Level, a 1–9 scale used by agencies to describe technology maturity. Higher numbers mean increasingly representative and ultimately operational demonstrations.
Request for Information gathers market/technical input; Request for Proposal asks organisations to submit competing proposals for actual procurement or contracted work.
You do not need dozens of contacts. A small number of real conversations is better. Save enough context that the name still means something in a month.
This is worth doing before the day blurs together. It is not a diary; it is a memory aid and a way to notice patterns over the week.
The rule is simple: use Oct 9–11 for a low-cost overland mini-trip if Thomas has the energy, but be in Istanbul on Oct 11. Do not make the international Hong Kong flight depend on a same-day cross-country connection.
The main technical programme, registration, exhibition, B2B area and Speaker Preparation Centre are at the NEST Convention Center in Belek. IAC also uses other NEST / Gloria facilities for selected events, so always check the location before assuming everything is in the same building.
Preferred plan: Belek / Serik → Konya → Eskişehir → Istanbul. It gives Thomas two very different Turkish cities without a large detour, keeps the costs modest, and uses the high-speed rail corridor for the second half. It also avoids spending Oct 10–11 simply waiting in Istanbul.
Finish the useful Friday programme. A current Belek→Konya listing shows a direct 17:45 departure arriving around 22:00, about 4h15. If that exact bus is unavailable, Serik has many more departures and is the safer transport hub.Current reference: Belek→Konya ~₺950 · Serik→Konya from ~₺800. Verify before purchase.
Slow morning. Visit the Mevlana Museum (currently free; generally 09:00–17:00), walk the old centre, eat properly, then take a later high-speed train to Eskişehir. Current TCDD schedules show multiple Konya→Eskişehir YHT services; book the exact train in the TCDD app/site rather than relying on a screenshot.Purpose: one cultural stop + easy rail connection, not a packed sightseeing day.
Spend the morning around the centre / Odunpazarı area, then take YHT to Istanbul. Arrive the same day and sleep in Istanbul. Keep the evening quiet, repack, confirm the airport and terminal for the Hong Kong flight.Critical rule: be in Istanbul on Oct 11.
No long-distance Turkish travel today. Leave generous airport time. Confirm whether the international flight departs IST or SAW and choose the Oct 11 hotel accordingly.
Flying Antalya → Istanbul remains the simplest fatigue-minimising option, and availability currently does not look critically tight. AJet is currently showing one-way AYT→SAW fares around ₺1,864 for Oct 9, ₺2,486 for Oct 10, and ₺3,151 for Oct 11. Fares move, so treat these only as a live reference checked on 5 October.
Thomas still has energy after IAC, wants to see more of Türkiye, and can comfortably travel light. It is the more memorable option.
He is tired, has accumulated too much luggage, the bus/train connections become awkward, or the international flight is early enough that another travel variable is not worth it.
Pamukkale / Hierapolis is the more spectacular sightseeing alternative, but it is a less efficient route toward Istanbul and introduces another paid attraction and transfer. If Thomas especially wants it, use Belek/Antalya → Denizli/Pamukkale → onward toward Eskişehir/Istanbul. Otherwise, Konya + Eskişehir is the better value-and-friction balance for this particular three-day window.
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If a deck needs to be updated after the online upload deadline, the Speaker Preparation Centre at NEST is the place to resolve it. Treat it as a safety valve, not as the normal last-minute workflow. For both Thomas presentations, carry the final deck on a USB drive and keep a second copy on the laptop/cloud.
If Patrick reaches Antalya and FLARE-XL is presented, this is also the practical route for loading or updating the presentation on site.
A missed shuttle, dead battery, changed room or corrupted file is an inconvenience, not a disaster. Keep two independent copies of anything essential, leave time between travel and presentations, and ask congress staff early rather than trying to solve everything alone at the last minute.
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You do not need to impress everyone or know every subsystem. Ask good questions, understand your own work, admit what you do not know, and pay attention. If you finish the week with two successful presentations, several real professional relationships and a better sense of the engineer you want to become, the trip has done its job.