1. SpaceUp Paris
2013
A success for everyone!
SpaceUp Paris, the first space-related unconference in France, was held on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 May 2013
at the European Space Agency headquarters in Paris. ESA opened to the participants the very room where the
main decisions for the European space industry and science are taken.
On the eve of the SpaceUp, the CNES also organised a kick-off event with a meeting between its engineers and
the SpaceUp participants to discuss the future European launcher Ariane 6.
Who attended SpaceUp Paris?
More than 125 people coming from 21 countries and 4 continents, all of them passionate about space,
participated to this SpaceUp Paris. Among them, 50% were French and a third were women.
As with other unconferences and barcamps, sessions were run freely by participants, with a huge variety of high
quality topics, from orbital debris to space tourism and from orbital simulation software to planetary sciences.
Among the participants were Marc Toussaint (ESA launchers expert) and many other professionals who
spontaneously wished to share the passion they have for their jobs and present some of ESA’s amazing missions,
such as the astronometry satellite GAIA, or Rosetta which will orbit a comet in 2014 and release its Philae lander
to study the comet nucleus.
Other experts from the industry and other organisations also presented their current work. Among those,
NEOShield which is working on the best way to protect the Earth from a deadly asteroid collision.
Throughout the weekend, four ESA astronauts (Jean-François Clervoy, Léopold Eyharts, Luca Parmitano and
Thomas Pesquet) shared their space flights experience for the two former… and their training and future missions
for the two latter.
What are the achievements?
Several themes emerged from the SpaceUp, most notably a brainstorming on how to again arise the general
public interest in space, via social networks or missions in which anyone could play a role, but also the emergence
of an open source/open hardware space community.
“The result of SpaceUp Paris is outstanding. To cooperate you must listen, be open to each other, learn to know
each other. This is the spirit of the ESA, and this is also the spirit of SpaceUp.” says Fernando Doblas, head of the
ESA Communication department.
After taking part in many discussions during the weekend, Fernando Doblas concluded the SpaceUp by offering
ESA’s support to any future SpaceUp unconference in Europe.

2. Figures
Livestreaming
More than 1,500 people viewed the SpaceUp Paris livestream during the weekend. The livestream was available
on the ESA web TV.
Social networks
Since the beginning of the project, SpaceUp Paris has been active on the major social networks: Facebook,
Google+, and especially Twitter.
During the weekend, more than 4,000 tweets were sent by more than 400 contributors. The reach (number of
twitter accounts who received a tweet) was estimated at over 500,000 and the timeline delivery was over 6.5
millions. These figures only account for the twitter activity during the weekend, not the global impact of the
event.
This visibility makes SpaceUp Paris an outstanding success of which the team is proud of.
Among the most notorious Twitter contributors were Jonathan Amos (BBC journalist), the Canadian Space Agency
(CSA), the German Space Agency (DLR), the NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock, the ESA astronaut Thomas
Pesquet, the NEOShield team… and of course ESA and CNES.
What happens next?
The livestream recording is already available to everyone on the ESA website.
The “60 seconds To Land” videos streamed during SpaceUp Paris and some of the presentations slides and videos
are already available on the website www.spaceup.fr. More will progressively be added.
More than 350 pictures are available on the Flickr group.
The Twitter account has more than 446 followers, steadily increasing.
The next edition of a SpaceUp unconference in France might take place in Toulouse in 2014.
About SpaceUp France
SpaceUp France is a non-profit organisation, created by six space enthusiasts with diverse career backgrounds.
They are: Brigitte BAILLEUL , Tanguy BERTRAND, Nicolas BRULEZ, Damien HARTMANN, Thomas NAVARRO and
Enguerran-Amaury PETITFILS. The first SpaceUp took place in San Diego (USA) in 2010. Since then, the concept
has been crossed borders and become an international event managed by different teams in different countries
all united with a common goal.
SpaceUp Paris 2013 was sponsored by ESA, the host organisation, CNES, ESO, the Community of Ariane Cities, the
Aeronautics and Astronautics Association of France (3AF), the International Independent Institute for Space and
Satellite Solutions (3i3s), ONERA, Ciel & Espace magazine, the HESpace recruitment agency, Ve-hotech and ITS
Vision.
Contact information
Brigitte BAILLEUL : Tel +33 (0)6 88 06 13 90 or brigitte.bailleul@spaceup.fr
Enguerran-Amaury PETITFILS : Tel +33 (0)6 76 91 66 92 or enguerran.petitfils@spaceup.fr
The SpaceUp Paris team: spaceup.paris@gmail.com