›International Astronautical Congress 2017

The IAF General Assembly at IAC 2014 Toronto, voted on Friday 3 October to hold IAC 2017 in Adelaide, Australia.

The successful bid was made by the Adelaide Convention Bureau, in partnership with The Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA) and State Government of South Australia. The IAC in September 2017 is expected to attract 3,000 delegates, including 200 astronauts, and contribute AUD$18m (US$15.8m) to the state’s visitor economy. Lockheed Martin Corporation will be the anchor sponsor of the Congress.

For the organisers this is the culmination of a four-year bid process, including an unsuccessful bid for the 2014 event. The organisers beat strong competition from Germany (Bremen), USA (Orlando), Turkey (Istanbul) and Ireland (Dublin) in their bid to secure what will be the largest congress ever to be hosted by Adelaide.

Brett Biddington, the leader of the Adelaide bid team, said that he, the team as a whole and the wider Australian space community were delighted and humbled by the confidence and trust placed in them by IAF members in Toronto to produce a memorable IAC in Adelaide in 2017. He said that all of the four contenders to host the IAC in 2017 had the capacity to do so and that the key differentiator, leaving the geographical factor aside, was the clarity of Australia’s strategy and purpose. He also said that the competition had caused the Adelaide team to work harder which had led to a better bid.

Looking ahead, Brett said that planning was already under way and that the aim of the LOC is to have the IAC 2017 Execution Plan essentially in place within a few months. An important early task will be to confirm the 2017 Congress theme and to design and select a logo that was unveiled at the Paris Spring meetings on March 2015.