Fraunhofer IPM, Freiburg, Germany  /  February 04, 2026  -  February 05, 2026

New Space Acceleration Days

PAST EVENT

Fraunhofer invites New Space ventures, established space stakeholders, and interested companies to join an open exchange and matchmaking. Share your needs, experiences, and ideas. We provide space know-how and cross-disciplinary capabilities in development, design, testing, production, funding, and policy. 

Let us jointly accelerate the New Space economy and build a robust manufacturing and testing ecosystem!

An exhibition will accompany the event. Please use the registration form to register as an exhibitor. If you have any questions, please contact Markus Winkler.

Program

Wednesday, Feb 4, 2026

10:00 h
 REGISTRATION
10:20 h Opening & Welcome
10:30 h Keynote
Dr. Siegbert Martin, CTO, Tesat-Spacecom GmbH & Co. KG
11:00 h Keynote
Dr. Manfred Wittenstein, WITTENSTEIN SE, Eigentümer
11:30 h Industrialization and Scalable Production in New Space – Accelerating the European NewSpace Ecosystem
Dr. Stephan Busch, Fraunhofer Ernst-Mach-Institut, EMI, Dr. Nadya Ben Bekhti-Winkel, Fraunhofer AVIATION & SPACE
12:00 h
 Lunch
13:30 h On the way to the NewSpace Factory: Challenges and Solutions in the Industrial Production for Space
Florian Grabi, Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA
14:00 h Brose Entry into New Space - Why Automotive Competence Can Help to Accelerate New Space
Werner Appelmann, Head of Micromobility, Chassis & Powertrain, Brose Fahrzeugteile SE & Co. KG
14:30 h Coffee
15:15 h

Panel discussion: From Policy to Investment – Scaling Europe’s Space Economy

Confirmed speakers:

  • Tomas Jonsson, European Commission, Team Leader of the CASSINI Initiative
  • Arianit Preci, German Space Agency at DLR, Head of Department for Robotics, Digitalization and AI
  • Frank Breidenich, ESA, Innovation and Industrialization
  • Mika Mänz, Founder and CEO of Acitoflux
16:30 h Lab tours at Fraunhofer IPM
18:00 h
 Get together with snacks & drinks
19:30 h Shared dinner at a Restaurant for those interested (at participants' own expense)

Thursday, Feb 5, 2026

09:00 h

Participants Pitch Session: Vision – Challenges – Lessons Learned

  • ATT Umweltsimulation: Testing in the New Space Economy - From Validation to Orbit
  • Bustec: How can we drastically minimize calibration time, while remaining NIST traceable
  • Fraunhofer ISE: Terrestrial Solar Cells for Space Applications
  • ZARM Technik: High Performance for Constellations
10:00 h
 cOFFEE AND NETWORKING
11:00 h From Demonstrator to Infrastructure: Building Thermal Intelligence with constellr
Marius Bierdel, Co-Founder, constellr GmbH
11:30 h Christian Weber, representative of CEO/CTO, OroraTech GmbH
12:00 h LUNCH

13:30 h

 LEOspace – New Force in New Space
Dr. Franz Georg Hey, CTO, LEOspace GmbH
14:00 h Enabling New Space Supply Chains – Space Logistics
Part 1: Presentation, Part 2: Questions and open discussion
Dr. Axel T. Schulte, Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML
 
14:30 h Wrap-up
15:00 H END OF WORKSHOP