Learning to Live on Another World: The International Community's Return to the Moon

Day: Tuesday 30 September
Time: 13:45 - 14:45 AEST
Location: Pyrmont Theatre, International Convention Centre (ICC) Sydney

Our Moon, the most accessible extraterrestrial object, is at the nexus of a transformation in space exploration unlike anything we've seen before. Space is undergoing expansive commercialization, mega spacecraft constellations, and human exploration beyond Earth orbit. The international community has now seen China, Russia, India, Japan, Israel, and the US independently attempt new lunar landings, return samples from never-before explored lunar regions (e.g., the far-side of the moon), and deploy new technologies on the lunar surface. These remarkable feats, by a new generation of explorers largely in new spacefaring nations and new space industries, are paving the way for humanity's return to the Moon. And, this time, it is an international endeavor aimed at building a sustained presence on the Moon by utilizing the natural resources on the surface, which itself ensures a resilient Earth.

Our panel assembles a diverse and international group of leading experts from space agencies that have recently dared to attempt lunar landings or are providing critical payloads to advance lunar exploration, including ESA (Europe), ASA (Australia), JAXA (Japan), NASA (USA). The panel will also include senior representation from Firefly, a new US commercial company that successfully landed on the Moon in 2025. The panel will discuss the inspirational missions and what they mean for their nations and the global industry, including the remarkable engineering and science behind the spacecrafts, landers, and rovers and new knowledge gained. Through discussions of successes and failures, risk tolerance, and lessons learned, the conversation will be channeled towards future technologies that are required to establish a sustained human presence on the moon.

This Plenary Session will be organized by Dr. Jason Kalirai and Dr. Ben Greenhagen from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), a key institution in lunar science and exploration.