Four days of executive summits in a five-star Paris hotel, run by Novaspace, where satellite operators, manufacturers, launch providers, investors and defence buyers meet at chief executive level.
World Space Business Week, known as WSBW and called World Satellite Business Week up to its 2024 edition, is a specialist executive conference on the commercial strategy of satellite operators, manufacturers and their investors, held annually in Paris each September since 1997. It is organised by Novaspace, the space consultancy formed from Euroconsult and SpaceTec Partners. The week is not one conference but a set of separately ticketed summits: the Summit for Satellite Financing and the Summit on Earth Observation Business form WSBW proper, and the Space Innovation Summit and the Space Defense and Security Summit run alongside. Its audience is chief executives and commercial directors of satellite operators, manufacturers and launch providers, agency and defence procurement executives, investors and insurers.
14 to 17 September 2026. The main venue is the Hôtel du Collectionneur, 51-57 rue de Courcelles, 75008 Paris, France, a five-star hotel in the 8th arrondissement. Inside the week, the Summit for Satellite Financing runs from 14 to 16 September, the Summit on Earth Observation Business on 16 and 17 September, and the Space Innovation Summit on 16 September, all at the hotel, with Wednesday 16 September as the shared day. The Space Defense and Security Summit runs on 15 and 16 September at a second venue, Les Salons Hoche, 9 avenue Hoche, about five minutes' walk away.
Novaspace, an independent space consultancy with four business lines: executive summits, management consulting, technology consulting and market intelligence. It was created by the merger of Euroconsult, the French space consultancy behind the event since 1997, and SpaceTec Partners, announced on 5 April 2024. Novaspace lists its headquarters at 47 rue Louis Blanc, 92400 Courbevoie, in the Paris business district, reports 150+ staff across 11 locations, and is led by chief executive Pacôme Révillon. Its partners Carla Filotico and Nathan de Ruiter moderate sessions at the 2026 week. The same team runs seven other executive summits, listed under the question on other editions below.
The official 2026 site advertises 1,600+ business leaders, 600+ organisations, 60+ countries, 200+ speakers and 110 sponsors and exhibitors. For 2025, a Novaspace press release dated 22 August 2025, three weeks before that edition opened, announced 1,400 decision-makers at WSBW and 1,800 across WSBW, the Space Defense and Security Summit and the Space Innovation Summit combined; no post-event count was found. The audience is chief executives and commercial directors of satellite operators, manufacturers and launch providers, space agency and defence procurement executives, investors, bankers, lawyers and insurers. The registration form sorts delegates into fourteen activity groups, from satellite operators and manufacturers to banking, finance and legal, space agencies, telecom operators and press, but no breakdown by group, country or seniority is published.
The official site publishes 229 speaker profiles for 2026, of which 37 are moderators; around 140 speak at the Summit for Satellite Financing, around 40 at the Space Innovation Summit and around 35 at the Summit on Earth Observation Business. The Space Defense and Security Summit has its own roster on its own site. Names on the 2026 roster include:
The remaining profiles are on the official speakers page; this list is a selection, not the full roster.
Three changes against 2025. The week is a day shorter: the 2025 edition ran five days, 15 to 19 September, and the 2026 edition runs four, 14 to 17 September, with the Summit on Earth Observation Business cut from three days to two. It is the second edition under the World Space Business Week name, adopted in 2025 after the 2024 edition ran as World Satellite Business Week. And the ticket range is wider than a single delegate pass: half-week, daily, online and summit-combination tickets now sit alongside the full registration. The Space Defense and Security Summit keeps its separate venue at Les Salons Hoche and moves to 15 and 16 September.
The published agenda has around 105 items over four days, organised by summit rather than by track, with themes that match the organiser's billing: satellite operator strategy, constellation economics, launch market dynamics, space defence and security, satellite financing and insurance, and early-stage space innovation.
Market presentations by Novaspace analysts, panels of 40 to 50 minutes, fireside chats of about 15 minutes, industry and executive dialogues between two organisations, short partner spotlights given to sponsors such as Katalyst, Vast, Satellogic and OroraTech, special announcements, a daily Novaspace Excellence Awards slot, and a startup pitch competition at the Space Innovation Summit. Around the sessions, delegates hold private bilateral meetings in suites and meeting rooms bookable at the hotel for groups of six to more than twenty, or on a privatised courtyard terrace, after identifying contacts through the event networking app. There is no matchmaking service. Sponsors have a networking and exhibition area inside the hotel, not a trade-fair floor.
Three kinds, with different costs.
Prices on the official site on 10 September 2026, all including taxes. The three main multi-day passes span 3,080 to 4,532 EUR depending on pass, and all three are sold out.
Availability is inconsistent between the two official channels: the event site still showed the half-week Earth observation pass, the daily passes, the innovation summit pass and the online ticket as open, while the Novaspace registration platform marked every one of them sold out on the same day. The only item it still offered was the defence summit add-on at 792 EUR instead of 1,980 EUR. There is no published student, startup or group rate. Registration is nominative and cannot be shared.
Through the "Become a Speaker" form on the official site, which asks for name, job title, organisation and a short proposal; the organiser says it looks for C-level speakers from private and public organisations. There is no open call for papers, no published deadline, no selection criteria and no statement on speaker passes or fees. With 229 profiles already published for 2026, a proposal now is a proposal for 2027. Two other routes exist in practice: sponsors receive partner spotlight slots on the agenda, and startups can enter the WSBW Pitch-off, whose six finalists pitch on stage at the Space Innovation Summit.
Through the form on the sponsorship opportunities page, which returns a sponsor brochure; no package names, prices or booth sizes are published, and no named sales contact is given. The organiser pitches visibility to "1,600 top-level decision-makers". What the 2026 sponsor wall shows is the structure in use: a Diamond sponsor, Official Partners, Platinum, Gold and Silver tiers, and a separate partner set for the Space Innovation Summit. Hosting is part of the offer: every coffee break, lunch, cocktail and themed pastry moment on the agenda carries a sponsor's name, and several sponsors hold partner spotlight slots. Media partnership packages are sold separately through their own form.
The published 2026 sponsor wall, in full:
Two French state bodies, the Direction Générale de l'Armement and the Agence de l'Innovation de Défense, appear as Gold sponsors, and the European Union's CASSINI space entrepreneurship programme as a Platinum sponsor.
Not publicly disclosed: the organiser publishes counts of organisations and countries, not a breakdown, so no majority can be established from published data. The sponsor wall and the speaker roster show the mix. Satellite operators (SES, Eutelsat, Viasat, Iridium, Hispasat, Hisdesat, Es'hailSat, Space42, AST SpaceMobile) and manufacturers and primes (Airbus Defence and Space, Thales Alenia Space, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Safran, Leonardo, MDA Space, L3Harris) carry the top tiers. Launch and in-orbit companies (Arianespace, Blue Origin, Firefly, Isar Aerospace, Rocket Lab, MaiaSpace, Intuitive Machines, Vast) and Earth observation firms (Planet, BlackSky, ICEYE, Satellogic, Vantor) are the next large groups. Investors, banks and law firms (Seraphim, Alpine Space Ventures, Rothschild and Co, Milbank), agencies (ESA, JAXA, NOAA, EUSPA, CNES) and French defence procurement (DGA, AID) complete the room. By speaker count, the Summit for Satellite Financing dominates the week, which tilts the audience toward operators, manufacturers and investment.
Through the press accreditation form on the official site. Applicants must work for a business or professional trade publication or media outlet and hold an editorial title; first-time applicants send a press registration request, a copy of their press card and a recent bylined article. Publishers, advertising, sales, marketing and PR staff do not qualify. Accredited journalists get access to all conference sessions and a dedicated press registration desk. The organiser warns that it cannot guarantee every request will be accepted. No deadline, no fee and no named press officer are published; the contact form offers a "Press and Media Inquiry" option. The Space Defense and Security Summit handles accreditation separately on its own site.
Almost all traceable coverage comes from the event's own media partners. For the 2025 edition, Via Satellite (media partner) ran a podcast on 29 September 2025 in which its editor summarised the week's takeaways, direct-to-device services and defence demand, and SpaceNews (media partner) ran an event page and recorded interviews on site, including one with the managing director of ispace Europe (unverifiable information). Before that edition, SpaceNews (media partner) promoted the week on social media as a "proud media partner of Novaspace Summits", repeating the 1,400+ figure. Payload published a preview of the 2025 week on 4 September 2025, labelled as sponsored content and authored by Novaspace. Aviation Week (media partner), Constellations (media partner), Defense News (media partner), Global Defense Insight (media partner), SatNews (media partner), Space Intel Report (media partner) and SpaceWatch Global (media partner) complete the 2026 partner list. SpacePolicyOnline lists the 2026 week in its events calendar. Independent news coverage of the 2026 edition was not found before the event.
Useful on content, weak as independent evidence of scale. Placed coverage: Via Satellite (media partner), SpaceNews (media partner) and the seven other media partners are listed on the organiser's sponsor wall, and SpaceNews (media partner) states the partnership itself; their reporting from the week can be substantive, but it is not an outside check on the organiser's figures. Independent but promotional: none identified beyond calendar listings such as SpacePolicyOnline. Organiser-claimed: the Payload preview is sponsored content written by Novaspace, and the attendance figures repeated elsewhere trace back to a Novaspace press release published before the 2025 week began. Predictable but unconfirmed: journalists accredited for 2026 are not a commitment to publish. The practical consequence is that every attendance, organisation and speaker count on this page is an organiser figure.
Because the product is access, not content. The livestream of the same sessions costs 660 EUR; the in-person full registration costs 3,740 EUR, and the difference buys a hotel where the chief executives of SES, Eutelsat, Viasat, Arianespace and Thales Alenia Space, and the Director General of ESA, are on the programme and in the corridors for four days, with suites to book for private meetings. The sponsor wall makes the same point from the other side: more than a hundred companies at five tiers pay to host the coffee, the lunches and the cocktails where that access happens. By 10 September 2026 the three main passes were sold out, which says the price is not deterring the buyers it is meant to filter for.
Because the week is four audiences sharing one address. The financing summit sells half-week access at 3,300 EUR to operators, manufacturers and investors; the Earth observation summit sells two days at 2,200 EUR to a smaller imagery and geospatial community; the innovation summit sells a single day at 792 EUR to startups and venture investors; and the defence summit sits in a separate building with a 792 EUR rate for military personnel. A buyer who needs only one of these rooms pays for one, and a sponsor can target one. The consequence for a first-time visitor is that "attending WSBW" means nothing until you know which summit your counterparts are in.
Because no figure on this page has been counted by anyone but the organiser, and some were published before the event they describe. The 1,400 delegates announced for 2025 come from a press release dated three weeks before that edition opened, and the media partner that repeated them is on the organiser's sponsor wall. For the defence summit, that release announced 300+ delegates, while the summit's own site now reports 480+ for the same 2025 edition. The organiser also says more than 90 percent of speakers hold C-suite positions, yet 37 of the 229 profiles published for 2026 are moderators, several of them Novaspace's own partners. The week is plainly senior and plainly selective; its size, though, should be read as a marketing claim.
It opens the autumn season as the executive meeting of the year, where commercial direction is set rather than where hardware is bought. September also brings Zero Debris Week in Seville from 8 September, ESA Industry Space Days at ESTEC on 16 and 17 September, and the SSGS ground segment conference in London on 30 September. October takes the community to the International Astronautical Congress in Antalya, and November concentrates the supply chain and the defence fixtures, with Global MilSatCom in London and Space Tech Expo Europe in Bremen. Paris Space Week, the French industrial show at Espace Champerret, falls in spring. Events Index tracks all of these in its space tech vertical. Against the supply chain fairs, WSBW is among the smallest events and the most expensive to attend.
No. WSBW has only been held in Paris, with an online component. Novaspace runs other executive summits under different names: the Space Industry Forum in Singapore, the Middle East Space Conference in Muscat, the Space Summit for a Resilient Future in Toulouse, Perspectives Spatiales in Paris and LATSAT in Bogotá, in addition to the Space Defense and Security Summit and the Space Innovation Summit held during the Paris week. Their next dates are not listed on Novaspace's summits page.
English. The organiser does not state a language policy, but the programme, session titles, speaker profiles, registration platform and terms of sale are all published in English only, and no interpretation service is mentioned, despite the Paris location.
Yes, in principle. The online ticket, at 660 EUR, gives livestream and networking app access for the Summit for Satellite Financing, the Summit on Earth Observation Business and the Space Innovation Summit; the defence summit is not included. Every in-person pass carries the same livestream and app access, and the FAQ says registered delegates receive a link to an online platform with the delegate list, livestreams, replays and presentations. On 10 September 2026 the event site showed the online ticket as open while the registration platform showed it sold out. Online registrations are not refundable, but a substitute delegate is allowed.
Cancellations for in-person attendance must be made in writing before 30 July 2026 and are subject to a 15 percent administration fee; after 30 July 2026 no refund is given. The cancellation deadline for the 2026 edition was 30 July 2026, so it has passed. Substitute delegates are permitted, for in-person and online registrations alike, and online registrations are never refunded. Registration is nominative and cannot be shared. If Novaspace postpones the event, payments are carried over to the new date, and a delegate who cannot attend the new date receives a credit note for 100 percent of payments, valid 18 months at a future Novaspace event; if force majeure makes the event impossible, payments are refunded, or refunded in proportion if it can only be held in limited or online form. Payment must be received before the event or access may be refused, and bank charges are borne by the delegate. The terms are governed by French law, with the Nanterre commercial court as jurisdiction.
Partly documented, and only by the venue. The event site says nothing about accessibility. The Hôtel du Collectionneur states on its own site that it is wheelchair accessible, with elevators and rooms adapted for guests with reduced mobility. The FAQ places the cloakroom on the underground floor next to the conference room, which suggests the main sessions are held below ground level and reached by lift. Nothing is published for Les Salons Hoche, and nothing on captioning, sign language, hearing loops, quiet rooms or a contact for access requests; the contact form is the only route to ask.
The Hôtel du Collectionneur is at 51-57 rue de Courcelles, 75008 Paris, near the Arc de Triomphe. The nearest stations are Courcelles on Metro Line 2, 400 metres away, Malesherbes on Metro Line 3, 900 metres, and the Murillo stop of bus 84, 500 metres. From Charles de Gaulle airport, the organiser recommends RER B then RER A to Charles de Gaulle-Étoile; from Orly, Metro Line 14 then bus 84 to Murillo. Hotel parking costs 60 EUR per night. Les Salons Hoche, for the defence summit, is at 9 avenue Hoche, about five minutes' walk. Registered participants get negotiated room rates at the host hotel, subject to availability, and the organiser advises booking early because September is busy in Paris. Visa invitation letters are available to registered delegates and speakers through the contact form. Badges are collected at the information desk in the hotel lobby, using the barcode sent by email before the event.
Official site: wsbw.com, with the programme at wsbw.com/agenda/program/, speakers at wsbw.com/agenda/speakers/, tickets at wsbw.com/attend/tickets-registration/, venue and travel at wsbw.com/attend/venue-and-travel/, the FAQ at wsbw.com/attend/faq/, sponsors at wsbw.com/sponsors-exhibitor/partners-and-sponsors/, press accreditation at wsbw.com/media-press/press-accreditation/ and the Space Innovation Summit at wsbw.com/space-innovation-summit/. Registration and the general terms and conditions are on Novaspace's registration platform, colloquium.idloom.events. The defence summit has its own site at sds-summit.com, and the organiser is at nova.space. No email address is published: all enquiries, including registration, sponsorship, speaking, press, payment, accommodation and visas, go through the contact form at wsbw.com/contact-us/.