Two days at The Brewery in London covering the military use of space, from satellite communications and space intelligence to space domain awareness, run by the community rather than by a commercial conference organiser. Admission is free, and registration is currently sold out.
Defence in Space (also abbreviated DISC) is an annual two-day conference on the military use of space, held in London. The organiser calls it a free event by and for the space and defence community, open to government, industry, institutions and academia. The 2026 edition is the fourth, after editions in 2023, 2024 and 2025. More than twenty talks cover military satellite communications, space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Earth observation and geospatial intelligence, space domain awareness, satellite navigation, space security and cyber, and national space programmes. The event supports the Allied Forces Foundation, a British-American charity for wounded service personnel and veterans.
Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 October 2026. The Brewery, 52 Chiswell Street, London, United Kingdom. The published schedule starts with arrival and coffee at 07:45 and the first keynote at 08:30 on both days, and ends with closing remarks at 16:30 on 28 October. The ticketing page lists the event as 08:30 to 17:00 on both days. The site marks the programme "in the making", so session times may move.
Defence in Space, a community-run conference with its own website and LinkedIn page. No company registration, legal entity or named individual organiser is published on the event pages. A steering committee is thanked on the home page, shown as logos without names. Contact: enquiries@defenceinspace.com.
The 2026 site shows a counter of 1,000 attendees, 65 speakers, 50 sponsors and 30 countries; the page does not say whether these are targets or results (unverifiable information). The 2025 site showed 900 attendees, 65 speakers, 40 sponsors and 30 countries. All figures are organiser counters and nothing indicates an audit. The audience described is armed forces and space commands, defence ministries, space agencies, defence primes, satellite operators, academia and smaller suppliers. The schedule includes speakers from the UK Ministry of Defence, UK Space Command, NATO Headquarters, NATO NCIA, the German Cyber and Information Domain Service, Luxembourg's Department of Defence and the US Space Systems Command.
The ticketing page shows the 2026 edition as sold out as of 20 October 2026, a week before the event. The 2025 edition ran on 28 and 29 October 2025, so the 2026 edition falls on the same Tuesday and Wednesday, one day earlier in the month. The 2026 schedule includes a Satuccino pitch session run by the Satellite Applications Catapult, with eleven small companies pitching, and a "Speed Dating" panel between students and industry employers (whether these are new this year is not stated). A panel on satellite imagery in the newsroom is led by two BBC Verify journalists. Day 2 includes a GEOINT panel and a panel on securing commercial satcom for military use.
A free two-day programme of more than twenty talks across two days, organised around the themes of military satellite communications, space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Earth observation and geospatial intelligence, space domain awareness, satellite navigation, space security and cyber, and national space programmes, in keynotes of 15 to 20 minutes and panels of 45 minutes.
The organiser describes the event as a free two-day programme of more than twenty talks, run by the space and defence community rather than a commercial organiser, supporting the Allied Forces Foundation. The formats are keynotes, moderated panels, a pitch session (Satuccino, with eleven companies pitching in front of the Satellite Applications Catapult), a talent "speed dating" panel and a charity brief. Coffee and lunch breaks are sponsored. The event is in person, in one room programme. No workshops, training courses or roundtables are listed for attendees, although the Platinum sponsor package mentions a roundtable.
No separate side events, receptions or fringe programme are published. The event supports the Allied Forces Foundation, which has a charity brief on the morning of 27 October. Sponsor packages include display booths for Diamond and Platinum sponsors. The Satuccino pitch session on 28 October (12:10 to 13:10) and the talent panel on 27 October (17:30 to 18:15) are the closest the programme comes to networking formats. Whether there is an evening reception is not stated. No B2B matchmaking system is listed.
Free to attend. Registration runs through Eventbrite and the listing says the event is currently sold out. The organiser asks government or institutional representatives and anyone with a specific request to write to enquiries@defenceinspace.com. No waiting list is described. No paid ticket category is published.
Not publicly disclosed. No call for speakers or abstracts is published on the event pages, and the contact form is framed around sponsorship. The 2026 speaker page lists about 58 names, most from government bodies, defence primes and satellite companies. Speaking slots also come with sponsorship: the Platinum package includes a 15 minute keynote slot and the Diamond package the chance to moderate a session or join a roundtable. The 2026 schedule is marked as still being finalised. Questions go to enquiries@defenceinspace.com.
Four packages in pounds sterling: Silver 3,500 GBP (logo, two tickets), Gold 5,900 GBP (logo, three tickets, 6 square metre booth of 2 by 3 metres), Diamond 8,900 GBP (booth, a roll-up banner, five tickets, the chance to moderate a session or join a roundtable, a video of up to two minutes shown during breaks) and Platinum 15,000 GBP (premium booth, eight tickets, extra banners, a 15 minute keynote slot or moderation of a roundtable). Single items: the lanyard sponsorship (9,000 GBP) and the coffee sponsorship (5,000 GBP) are marked sold out, the lunch sponsorship is 9,000 GBP and shown as available. Packages can be customised. VAT treatment is not stated. Contact: enquiries@defenceinspace.com.
The sponsors page groups logos under Lead, Platinum, Diamond, Gold and Silver sponsors and a Media Partner heading, but gives no names in text, so the tier assignments are not documented here. Sponsors named in the schedule: Eutelsat Group sponsors the coffee breaks and Astroscale and Shield Space sponsor the lunch breaks on 27 and 28 October. Companies with keynotes or panel seats include CGI, Airbus Defence and Space, Marconi Technologies, Open Cosmos, Astroscale, Lockheed Martin Space, ST Engineering iDirect, Comtech, Intellian Technologies, Gilat Defense, Calian, Thales, GovSat, Viasat and Iridium, but speaking does not prove a sponsor tier. The organiser's counter reports 50 sponsors (unverifiable information).
Not publicly disclosed as a breakdown. The programme is weighted towards satellite communications suppliers and operators (ST Engineering iDirect, Comtech, Intellian, Viasat, Eutelsat, Gilat, Cobham Satcom, Calian), defence primes (Lockheed Martin Space, Thales, Airbus Defence and Space), small space companies (Open Cosmos, Astroscale, OQ Technology) and public bodies from the UK, NATO, Germany and Luxembourg.
Not publicly disclosed. No press accreditation page or press contact is published. The only contact on the site is enquiries@defenceinspace.com, which the organiser gives for questions about the event.
None found as editorial coverage of the 2026 edition. What appears is listings by participants and calendars: a Space Agenda event page, a Royal Institute of Navigation listing, and pages by companies taking part (ST Engineering iDirect, CGI, TTP, Teledyne). Two BBC Verify journalists speak on 28 October, which makes them participants, not press coverage. The sponsors page has a Media Partner heading, but the partners are shown as logos only.
Nothing to classify as independent coverage. The material found is organiser-published, company-published or calendar listings, which repeat the organiser's dates, venue and "fourth edition" description. A search listing gave the venue address of an earlier edition as York Way, which does not match the 2026 address on the venue page.
Anyone who has not yet registered: the ticketing page shows the event as sold out. Buyers looking for closed-door procurement meetings: the event is open and the organiser describes no matchmaking or meeting system. Delegates expecting classified or operational detail: it is an open conference for government, industry, institutions and academia, and no restricted sessions are announced. Speakers wanting to submit a talk: no call is published, and slots go through invitation or sponsorship.
It is held in late October in London, in the UK and Ireland region, with an international audience. It is a fixed two-day annual conference started in 2023, and the previous edition ran on 28 and 29 October 2025. Its two-day, single-city, free-admission format differs from the paid conferences in the same field.
No. Every edition listed by the organiser (2023, 2024, 2025, 2026) is in London, and each has its own website at a year subdomain. The 2026 edition is the fourth. No edition in another city is announced.
The site, schedule and ticketing page are in English. Interpretation is not mentioned.
Not publicly disclosed. The event is in person, and no livestream, replay or recording commitment is published for 2026. The 2025 site carried a YouTube channel link and a promotional video, and the 2026 home page embeds a video, but neither is described as a session recording.
Not publicly disclosed. Tickets are free, and the Eventbrite listing in the sourced material shows no refund or transfer terms. Sponsorship cancellation terms are not published either.
Not publicly disclosed. No accessibility statement is published on the event site. The venue page covers transport, parking and cloakroom, and lists no step-free access information. Contact enquiries@defenceinspace.com before the event.
The Brewery is at 52 Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4SD (the venue page; the ticketing page shows EC1Y 4SA), in the City of London on the former Whitbread site. Walking times on the venue page: Barbican and Moorgate stations 5 minutes, Farringdon 10 minutes, Bank and Liverpool Street 15 minutes. At least ten bus routes serve the area. Airports by distance: London City 13 km, Heathrow 33 km, Stansted 53 km, Luton 57 km, Gatwick 80 km. There is no car parking on site; the nearest public car park is at the Barbican. Bicycle parking and a free cloakroom are available. Venue telephone: +44 (0)20 7638 8811.
Because the admission is free and the programme still reaches senior government speakers: a Rear Admiral opens the event, NATO and the US Space Systems Command give briefs, and the two days carry more than twenty talks. The room is therefore mixed, with officials, primes, small suppliers and students, instead of a procurement audience with a four-figure pass. That mix is why a junior officer or a small supplier can hear the same keynotes as a prime's director, and why the 2026 edition filled before the date.
Because the attendance, speaker, sponsor and country figures are counters on the organiser's own site, with no audit and no label saying whether they describe the past or the coming edition: the 2025 site showed 900 attendees and the 2026 site shows 1,000. Free registration also means a registration is not a seat in the room. Treat the dates, venue and schedule as organiser-stated, and note that the schedule is marked as still being finalised.
Official site: https://defenceinspace.com/. Schedule: https://defenceinspace.com/schedule/. Speakers: https://defenceinspace.com/speakers/. Sponsors: https://defenceinspace.com/sponsors/. Sponsorship packages: https://defenceinspace.com/sponsorship/. Venue: https://defenceinspace.com/venue/. Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/disc-26-tickets-1979851448980. 2025 edition: https://2025.defenceinspace.com/. Contact: enquiries@defenceinspace.com.