On Tuesday 16 September 2025, the Australia New Zealand Chamber of Commerce Luxembourg (ANZCCL) hosted an online conference on Australian and Luxembourg space industry-funded collaborations.
The event, hosted by Darren Shipard, Vice Chair & Board Member at ANZCCL, welcomed representatives from a variety of space-related companies based in Luxembourg, including the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA), Luxinnovation, LuxProvide and OQ Technology. It focused on new commercial applications and existing collaborations between Luxembourg and Australian-based technology and research companies involved in the space industry.
The first section of the seminar concentrated on Luxembourg and the work performed by various companies involved in the space industry. The first contributor, Ahmed Aly, Business Development and Investments Manager at LSA, talked of the LSA’s position as a member of the European Space Agency (ESA), Luxembourg’s national space program, Lux Impulse, and the LSA’s latest initiative “Space for Other Sectors“, which currently is involved in establishing finance within the sector and has secured a memorandum of understanding with the European Investment Bank.
There then followed a presentation from David Foy, Head of Sector Development - Digital Economy at Luxinnovation GIE, which looked at how Luxinnovation works to connect people looking for specific partners in research, funding and developing proofs of concepts. He noted Luxembourg’s Institute of Science and Technology and its work with robotics and research, the University of Luxembourg’s ZeroG lab, LuxInnovation’s work in helping to secure research development funding.
Lari Cujko, Startup Program Lead at the European Space Resources and Innovations Centre (ESRIC), then talked of the research, commercialisation and community activities ESRIC is involved with, including its Startup Support Program and Luxembourg startup incubator Technoport SA. He noted the examples of companies which initially came from China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Poland, Peru, Spain and Turkey who are now based in Luxembourg and have been selected for funding, benefitting from €200,000 in support.
Head of Startup at LuxProvide, Vittorio Santonocito, then presented examples of the business development and account management work LuxProvide undertakes with startups, particularly in relation to data, artificial intelligence (AI), research and commercialisation. He highlighted LuxProvide’s management of Luxembourg supercomputer Meluxina and the benefits of its sovereign status, meaning data, algorithms and any other information uploaded to the Meluxina supercomputer is guaranteed to stay in Luxembourg.
Hubert Moser, Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer at Flawless Photonics, was next and described the work being undertaken the company in communications fibre development. He described how Flawless Photonics is developing and shipping raw materials for the production of data fibre to the International Space Station (ISS) to take advantage of microgravity, in an effort to produce data fibres which have a higher strength performance than those manufactured on the ground.
It was then the turn of Stefan Lübcke to talk about the work of YURI and the development of ScienceTaxi, its made-in-Luxembourg micro-lab platform which enables commercial research in Low Earth Orbit through its bespoke delivery system for scientific payloads. A system he described as “opening the door for pharma, biotech, food and cosmetics industries to explore and benefit from the unique potential of microgravity”.
The final participant from Luxembourg was Christoph Limmer, International Executive at OQ Technology. Mr Limmer provided insight into the work of OQ Technology in the field of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite systems and their focus on connected devices located in areas where traditional cellular mobile coverage is not enabled. He also described the work being undertaken by OQ Technology in the field of direct-to-device (D2D) technology, where there is no intermediate network between a device and the communicating satellite - a technology also being developed by American companies such as Amazon and Starlink. In closing, Mr Limmer highlighted OQ Technology’s current efforts to open an office in Sydney, Australia, in a bid to help the company “build entry roads into the Australian market”.
The second section of the seminar then concentrated on Australian development, research and funding and included contributions from Sarah Cannard, Industry Director at SmartSat CRC, Australia’s largest space research centre, Campbell Pegg, Director (Space) at the South Australian Space Industry Centre (SASIC), Federico Tata Nardini, Chief Financial Officer at Fleet Space Technologies, James Yeun, Executive Director, Innovation and Emerging Industries at Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation, Aude Vignelles, Director of Vignelles Space, Alex Shapilsky, Group Executive - Deep Tech for Cicada Innovations, and Professor Stefan Williams, co-Director at the NSW Space Research Network (SRN).
