Darwin at ESA Transportation Commercialisation Day

The European Space Agency (ESA) is an important partner in Darwin’s transportation and communications work. On 27 November 2023, ESA held a Transportation Commercialisation Day at the European Space Research and Technology Centre, located in the scenic seaside town of Noordwijk in the Netherlands.

The Transportation Day was the second in ESA’s Commercialisation Days series, arranged by the ESA Commercialisation Gateway. Through these events, ESA is supporting the commercialisation of R&D projects and encouraging full use of the potential of space in everyday life.

The event focused on three main areas of innovation in transport: autonomous vehicles, railways and maritime transportation. It offered startups the opportunity to pitch their transportation innovations to an audience of investors, including the European Investment Bank. Darwin was there to present its work with connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).

‘It was an excellent conference,’ said Daniela Petrovic, Darwin’s co-founder. ‘We were able to hear valuable feedback on the commercialisation paths of our products and services from bankers and investors in person.’

Daniela also enjoyed the opportunity to see zero-gravity training and enter an exact replica of the International Space Station’s Columbus laboratory. ‘I had a go, and it wasn’t easy to do the example experiment even with the luxury of full gravity. We should appreciate the efforts of astronauts who are advancing science to new frontiers for humanity.’

Below are some photographs from the event, including a picture of Daniela next to a Mars rover with Roberta Mugellesi Dow, integrated applications manager at ESA. We are grateful to Roberta for all her help in promoting Darwin within the ESA community and through ESA platforms.

Darwin Innovation Group is a UK-based company that provides services related to autonomous vehicles and communications. If you’re interested in working with us, take a look at our careers page. If you’d like to know how we can help your organisation make use of autonomous vehicles, contact us. You can also follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

News tags