The business-to-business exhibition for the European space manufacturing and supply chain, held 17 to 19 November 2026 at Messe Bremen in its ninth edition; more than 950 exhibitors across spacecraft and satellite manufacturing, components, materials and composites, testing, ground systems, launch and smallsats, with several conference stages and free matchmaking through the Enterprise Europe Network.
Space Tech Expo Europe is the annual business-to-business exhibition for the European space manufacturing and supply chain, held in Bremen since 2016 and reaching its ninth edition in 2026. It is a supply chain show rather than a policy or science conference: its subject is satellite and spacecraft manufacturing, components, materials and composites, testing and qualification, ground systems, launch services, and smallsats and constellations, and its audience is the people who buy and sell those things. It serves civil, military and commercial space alike. The event runs 17 to 19 November 2026 at Messe Bremen, with a conference programme across several stages alongside the exhibition floor. Bremen is not an arbitrary host: the city is a centre of European aerospace manufacturing, which is why the show has stayed there. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and wfb-bremen.de, consulted 18 September 2026.
Space Tech Expo Europe 2026 runs Tuesday 17 to Thursday 19 November 2026, three days. The venue is Messe Bremen, with Hall 5 identified as the principal hall for the 2026 edition, on the exhibition and congress site next to the OVB Arena. The practical detail that matters most is the walk: from the north exit of Bremen central station it is about three minutes on foot to the exhibition and congress centre, which makes this one of the few European trade shows reachable from an intercity train without any local transport at all. Daily opening hours for 2026 were not published in the sources reachable on this pass. The event runs annually in November. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com/plan-your-visit/ and congress-bremen.com, consulted 18 September 2026.
Space Tech Expo Europe is organised by Smarter Shows, part of Informa Markets, the international exhibitions group. That makes it a commercial trade show rather than an agency or association event, which distinguishes it sharply from most of the European space calendar, where the International Astronautical Congress and the agency conferences are run by institutional bodies. The commercial structure shows in the format: the revenue comes from exhibitor space and sponsorship rather than from delegate fees, which is why trade entry is free or low-cost. General enquiries go to info@spacetechexpo-europe.com. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
Attendance figures for the 2026 edition are published in a range: the event record holds around 10,000, while the organiser's own 2026 material puts more than 12,300 attendees on the exhibition floor, and the gap has not been resolved on this pass (unverifiable information). The audience composition is consistent across sources and is the useful part: prime contractors, space agency buyers, component and materials suppliers, test houses, engineers, specifiers and procurement teams from across the European supply chain, together with military and commercial space operators. This is a buying and selling audience rather than a research one: a visitor should expect procurement conversations rather than papers. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
This is the ninth edition, and the organiser's published targets for it are above previous years: more than 950 exhibitors and more than 12,300 attendees on the exhibition floor. The conference structure is given as more than three stages for 2026, named as Space Tech Expo Industry, Space Tech Expo Smallsats, and a Mobility and Connectivity Conference, the last of which reflects the growing weight of satellite connectivity in the commercial market. Visitor registration for 2026 had not opened when this fiche was written, with the organiser running a register-your-interest form instead at spacetechexpo-europe.com/register-your-interest-2026. A returning visitor should watch for that opening rather than assume last year's registration carries over. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com/register-your-interest-2026 and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
The exhibition floor is the main event, and the conference programme runs alongside it across more than three stages: Space Tech Expo Industry, Space Tech Expo Smallsats, and a Mobility and Connectivity Conference. The event record describes four conference programmes alongside the exhibition, so the exact count for 2026 is between three and four depending on how the organiser groups them (unverifiable information). The programme features speakers from the space sector and from satellite operators. The thematic spread across exhibition and conference is satellite and spacecraft manufacturing, components, materials and composites, testing and qualification, ground systems, launch services, and smallsats and constellations. No named 2026 speaker roster was published in the sources reachable on this pass. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
Four, and one of them is unusual enough to be the reason to attend. The exhibition floor with more than 950 exhibitors is the core. The conference stages, three or four depending on the grouping, run the talk programme. National and regional pavilions organise the floor by country, with the Swiss pavilion coordinated by Switzerland Global Enterprise as one documented example. And free business-to-business matchmaking runs in cooperation with the Enterprise Europe Network, the European Commission's business support network, which is the feature that distinguishes this event from a conventional trade show: an organiser-run meeting service at no cost, aimed squarely at small and medium suppliers. The event record confirms B2B matchmaking is available while advance meeting scheduling is not, so meetings are booked through the Enterprise Europe Network service rather than through an organiser app. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
Not documented as a separate fringe. The national and regional pavilions function as country-level hubs and typically host their own receptions, and regional bodies in Bremen, notably WFB Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen and the Aviaspace Bremen cluster, promote the event and organise local industry participation, which in practice generates activity around the show. None of that is published as a side-event programme. The compactness of the site, a single exhibition and congress centre three minutes from the main station, means anything of the kind happens within a short walk rather than across the city. Searched: the official site, the Bremen economic development and cluster pages and European space trade press. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com, wfb-bremen.de and aviaspace-bremen.de, consulted 18 September 2026.
Trade entry is free or low-cost, with conference passes quoted separately; exact 2026 figures were not published in the sources reachable on this pass, and visitor registration for the edition had not opened when this fiche was written. The organiser runs a register-your-interest form at spacetechexpo-europe.com/register-your-interest-2026 to alert people when registration goes live. The pricing shape follows from the commercial model described in the organiser entry: an Informa trade show earns from exhibitor space, so it keeps the door cheap to maximise the buyer traffic that justifies the stand price. For a small supplier, the combination of free or low-cost entry with free Enterprise Europe Network matchmaking means the cost of attending as a visitor is essentially travel. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com/register-your-interest-2026 and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
Not publicly disclosed. No call for papers, speaker application form, selection criteria or deadline was found for the 2026 conference stages in the sources reachable on this pass. The programme is described as featuring high-profile speakers from the space sector and satellite operators, which points to a curated roster. At a commercially organised trade show, speaking slots on conference stages are frequently attached to sponsorship packages rather than awarded on submission, though the organiser does not state this. The practical route is an enquiry to info@spacetechexpo-europe.com, timed well before the November dates. No speaker fee or expenses policy is documented. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com, consulted 18 September 2026.
Exhibiting is the organiser's main commercial product and enquiries go through spacetechexpo-europe.com and info@spacetechexpo-europe.com. No public stand rate card or sponsorship tier pricing was retrievable on this pass, so terms are quoted. The route worth knowing about is the national or regional pavilion: Switzerland Global Enterprise coordinates a Swiss pavilion for the 2026 edition, and comparable national bodies do the same for other countries, which for a small or medium supplier is generally cheaper and administratively simpler than contracting floor space directly. A company from a country without a pavilion contracts with the organiser. With more than 950 exhibitors expected, floor position and early booking matter. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and s-ge.com/en/event/swiss-pavilion/swiss-pavilion-space-tech-expo-europe-2026, consulted 18 September 2026.
Not publicly disclosed as a named sponsor roster in the sources reachable on this pass, and the event record holds no sponsor list. What is published is the scale of paying participation: more than 950 exhibitors expected for 2026. Two institutional relationships are documented and matter more than a sponsor list would: the Enterprise Europe Network, the European Commission's business support network, provides the free matchmaking service, and national promotion bodies such as Switzerland Global Enterprise organise country pavilions. Bremen's own economic development agency WFB and the Aviaspace Bremen cluster support the event locally. The event record holds no official media partner list, so no mention in this fiche carries a "(media partner)" marker. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
The supply chain rather than the primes, which is the event's whole proposition. The exhibitor base is component and subsystem manufacturers, materials and composites suppliers, test and qualification houses, ground systems and equipment vendors, launch service providers and smallsat and constellation companies, with prime contractors and agency buyers present chiefly on the buying side. Exail, the French navigation and photonics group, is one documented 2026 exhibitor, and Acktar, an Israeli optical coatings supplier, is another; both are characteristic of the floor, specialist suppliers rather than household names. Geographically the show is European, organised in national and regional pavilions, with Switzerland among the countries fielding one in 2026. A company looking for the institutional and agency side of European space will find more of it at the International Astronautical Congress than here. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com, exail.com/events/space-tech-expo-2026 and acktar.com, consulted 18 September 2026.
Not publicly disclosed. No media accreditation page, press contact, eligibility criteria or deadline was found on the official site in the sources reachable on this pass, and visitor registration for the 2026 edition had not opened when this fiche was written, which may explain the absence. The documented contact route is the general address info@spacetechexpo-europe.com and the register-your-interest form. A journalist planning to cover the November edition should use that route and should watch for the registration opening, since press accreditation at Informa shows typically opens alongside visitor registration. Searched: the official site's plan-your-visit and registration pages. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com, consulted 18 September 2026.
Coverage is concentrated in regional economic development communication and exhibitor marketing rather than in independent journalism. WFB Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen, the city's economic development agency, publishes the event; the Aviaspace Bremen aerospace cluster does the same for its members; Switzerland Global Enterprise promotes the Swiss pavilion; and Congress Bremen carries it as venue operator. Exhibitors including Exail and Acktar publish their own attendance pages, which are marketing. Beyond that, the event appears across trade show listing and stand-builder sites that republish organiser copy. No independent European space trade press reporting specific to the 2026 edition was located on this pass. The event record holds no official media partner list, so no mention in this fiche carries a "(media partner)" marker. Source: the items named above, consulted 18 September 2026.
Weak as independent verification, and the attendance figures show why it matters. The event record holds around 10,000 attendees while the organiser's 2026 material claims more than 12,300 on the exhibition floor, a 23 percent difference in a number that only the organiser can measure and that no outside party has checked. The exhibitor figure of more than 950 is likewise an organiser forecast. Everything located on this pass traces either to the organiser, to promotional bodies with an interest in the event succeeding, Bremen's economic development agency, a regional aerospace cluster, a national export promotion agency, or to exhibitors marketing their own presence. That is not a reason to distrust the figures, but it is a reason not to treat their precision as meaningful. What can be relied on is structural: the venue, the three-minute walk from Bremen station, the Enterprise Europe Network matchmaking partnership and the national pavilion arrangements are all checkable commitments rather than claims about size. Source: cross-reading of spacetechexpo-europe.com against the regional and exhibitor items above, 18 September 2026.
Anyone looking for the institutional side of space. This is a manufacturing supply chain exhibition: there is no agency policy programme, no scientific track and no astronaut-and-ministers plenary, and a researcher, a policy professional or a space agency official will find more of their world at the International Astronautical Congress. Downstream users of space data, earth observation analytics companies, insurers, application developers, are also poorly served by a floor built around components, composites and test facilities. And a supplier whose market is outside Europe should weigh the geography: the exhibitor and buyer base is European by design, organised in national pavilions, and the show does not claim a global audience. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com, consulted 18 September 2026.
It is the supply chain fixture, and it deliberately sits apart from the institutional one. The European space calendar's other anchor in this quarter is the International Astronautical Congress, held in Antalya in early October 2026, which is the agency, research and policy gathering; Space Tech Expo Europe follows six weeks later in November and serves the industrial layer underneath it. The two are complements rather than competitors, and a company active in both worlds will attend both. Within the broader Space Tech Expo brand, the Bremen event is the European edition of a franchise that runs elsewhere. In the immediate November week, it shares the calendar with Slush in Helsinki and with the Munich electronics fairs, none of which competes for the same audience. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the EventsIndex space tech registry, consulted 18 September 2026.
The Space Tech Expo brand runs editions beyond Europe, and the Bremen event is explicitly branded as the European one, which implies at least one sibling elsewhere. The specific cities, dates and organiser arrangements of those other editions could not be confirmed from the sources reachable on this pass and are not listed here rather than listed wrongly (unverifiable information). What is established is that the European edition has been held in Bremen for all nine of its editions since 2016, with no second European city and no travelling arrangement. A reader needing the wider brand calendar should consult the organiser directly at info@spacetechexpo-europe.com. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
English. The event record gives English as the sole working language, and the site, the exhibitor material and the conference programme are published in English despite the German venue, which reflects a pan-European exhibitor and visitor base organised in national pavilions. No German-language track and no simultaneous interpretation is documented. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
Not publicly disclosed as an organiser-run offer. No livestream, virtual pass or on-demand conference archive was found for the 2026 edition in the sources reachable on this pass, and the event record holds no replay access entry for this event. The value of the show is the floor and the matchmaking meetings, neither of which transfers to a stream, so the absence is consistent with what the event is for. The organiser maintains a social presence, including a Facebook page for the event, which carries some post-event material. Searched: the official site's plan-your-visit and registration pages. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com and the database record, consulted 18 September 2026.
Not publicly disclosed, and largely moot on the visitor side: trade entry is free or low-cost, so there is little to refund. Where it matters is the conference passes, which are quoted separately and whose terms were not published in the sources reachable on this pass, and the exhibitor contracts, whose cancellation terms sit with the organiser rather than on the public site. With visitor registration for 2026 not yet open when this fiche was written, no terms page existed to check. A conference delegate or exhibitor should obtain the terms from info@spacetechexpo-europe.com before committing. Searched: the plan-your-visit page and the register-your-interest page. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com/plan-your-visit/, consulted 18 September 2026.
Not publicly disclosed at event level. No accessibility statement, accessible route guidance, accessible seating arrangement for the conference stages, or access contact was found on the event's own pages. The venue, the Bremen exhibition and congress centre operated by Messe Bremen and Congress Bremen, publishes general visitor information, but no event-specific arrangement was documented and none of the venue's provision is restated here as if it were the organiser's. One structural point is favourable: the venue is three minutes on foot from the north exit of Bremen central station, which is a short and level approach compared with the out-of-town fairgrounds typical of European trade shows. An attendee with access requirements should contact info@spacetechexpo-europe.com before travelling. Searched: the official site's plan-your-visit page and the venue pages. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com/plan-your-visit/ and congress-bremen.com, consulted 18 September 2026.
Messe Bremen sits on the exhibition and congress site next to the OVB Arena, and the approach is the simplest of any event in this registry: from the north exit of Bremen central station it is about a three-minute walk, with no tram, bus or taxi needed. Bremen Hauptbahnhof is on the main north German rail network, with direct services from Hamburg, Hanover and the Ruhr, so most European visitors can reach the hall by train from their arrival airport. Bremen Airport is a short tram ride from the centre for those flying directly, and Hamburg and Hanover airports are the usual alternatives for long-haul arrivals. Hall 5 is the principal hall for the 2026 edition. Source: spacetechexpo-europe.com/plan-your-visit/ and congress-bremen.com, consulted 18 September 2026.
Trade shows are normally structured so that the small supplier pays to be seen and hopes the right buyer walks past. Space Tech Expo Europe runs a free business-to-business matchmaking service in cooperation with the Enterprise Europe Network, the European Commission's business support network for small and medium enterprises, and that single arrangement inverts the usual logic. A five-person composites company in a country with no space agency budget can register, book meetings with prime contractors' procurement teams before arriving, and pay nothing for either the entry or the introductions. Read alongside the national pavilion structure, which lets the same company exhibit under its country's flag rather than buying floor space outright, it describes an event engineered for the bottom of the supply chain rather than the top. That is a genuinely different proposition from the agency-driven space calendar, where the cost of a delegate pass alone would exceed what a small supplier spends on the whole trip to Bremen.
Two numbers describe the same edition: around 10,000 in the record this page was built from, and more than 12,300 on the exhibition floor in the organiser's own 2026 material. Neither has been counted by anyone outside the organisation, and the sources that repeat them, Bremen's economic development agency, a regional aerospace cluster, a national export promotion body, exhibitors marketing their own stands, all have an interest in the larger figure being true. The exhibitor number, more than 950, is a forecast for an edition whose visitor registration had not even opened when this page was written. None of that makes the show small or the figures dishonest; it makes their precision meaningless. What a supplier should actually weigh is checkable and more useful anyway: which national pavilions are confirmed, whether the Enterprise Europe Network matchmaking will reach the buyers it needs, and whether the primes it wants to sell to are on the exhibitor list. Those questions have answers. The attendance number does not.
Official site: spacetechexpo-europe.com. Plan your visit, travel and accommodation: spacetechexpo-europe.com/plan-your-visit/. Register your interest for 2026: spacetechexpo-europe.com/register-your-interest-2026. Venue: congress-bremen.com/en/events/space-tech-expo-europe/. Bremen economic development listing: wfb-bremen.de. Regional aerospace cluster: aviaspace-bremen.de. Swiss pavilion coordination: s-ge.com. General enquiries: info@spacetechexpo-europe.com. Social: facebook.com/spacetechexpoeu/.