Welcome to the web page of AIAA Houston International Committee.
Chair: Douglas Yazell
Email: international@aiaahouston.org
Sister Sections:

• France since 2007
• Ethiopia since 2017
• Peru since 2017
  

Mexico:
Mexico is part of AIAA Houston Section in Region IV (and Region IV is Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mexico). Region VII of AIAA is International. Here is a link to the web page for AIAA Regions & Sections.

We archive our earlier web page (up to 2025) using this link. The AIAA Houston sister sections above (France, Ethiopia, and Peru) are described well in this status report from August of 2025.

[2026 10 04] October 4, 2026
[The 77th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2026) in Antalya Tűrkiye October 5-9, 2026]

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Here is a link to the Wikipedia article about the annual International Astronautical Congress. The theme of IAC 2026 is, “The World Needs More Space“. The mascot of IAC 2026 is a plush turtle in a spacewalking spacesuit riding on a rocket in space past the Blue Marble Earth with the slogan, “From the Turquoise to the Stars“.

AIAA Houston members Dr. Svetlana Hanson (a presenter for IAC 2026) and Mr. David Hanson are attending IAC 2026. They are sending photos and captions for this IAC 2026 blog entry. I (Douglas Yazell) created bulleted lists of these images, then added image galleries. The bulleted lists will include some short (a few seconds) movies created from Apple Live Photos, using the Apple .mov format.

Sunday, October 4, 2026: Two photos – A poster for the 2026 top quark workshop and an IAC 2026 poster on a big TV monitor. (Those two images and the “cartoon” image above fail to scale nicely in Safari on my macOS but they scale nicely in Safari on my iPhone iOS, and they scale nicely in Chrome on my macOS.)

Monday, Day 1, October 5, 2026: The images appear below.

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• An IAC 2026 overview document and two pages of a schedule for Monday, pages one and two.
• An image of the booth of the Türkiye Space Agency. “Where the Future Begins,” and, “This Journey Belongs to All of Us.”
• An image of the booth of the European Space Agency (ESA) with a man posing for a photo while he appears to hold up a large model of the Sun.
• A 6-second movie (using the .mov format from Apple) showing the YAMCS Mission Control booth and a video of a Moon rover.
• An image of the booth for Open Cosmos.
• An image of the booth for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
• An image of four people at the booth for Houston as a candidate for IAC2029. The four people are Dr. Svetlana Hanson, David Hanson, Vanessa, and Sam. Vanessa E. Wyche:Director of NASA Johnson Space Center. Sam Gunderson’s Title at IAC 2025: Partnership Development Lead, Exploration Technology Office, NASA/JSC.
• One image of the opening ceremony
• One image of Türkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressing the opening ceremony
• Two images of the European Space Agency (ESA) humanoid robot, image one and image two.
• An image of the NASA booth
• Two images (image one and image two) of the Maldives Space Research Organization & United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs
• Two images (image one and image two) of the OHB Vision for a European Moonport.
• An image of the evening welcome reception

Tuesday, Day 2, October 6, 2026: The images appear below.

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• One image of a schedule for Tuesday which includes a presentation by Dr. Svetlana Hanson, an AIAA Houston Member, “Ethical Governance of AI-Enabled Scientific Knowledge Systems: Implications for Data-Driven Research and Space Exploration.”
• Two images of Dr. Svetlana Hanson, an AIAA Houston Member, making the above presentation, image one and image two.
• Three images of booths for the French Space Agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatial (CNES), image one, image two, and image three.
• One image taken by the IAC 2026 Photographer of people seated at a table for a meeting of the Human Spaceflight Committee, which includes Dr. Svetlana Hanson and Mr. David Hanson, both members of AIAA Houston.

Wednesday, Day 3, October 7, 2026: The images appear below.

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• A movie (using the .mov format from Apple) of ducks while having coffee outside at the hotel
• An image of the booth for the AIAA pitch for Houston for IAC 2029, and an IAC 2026 event map
• Four movies (.mov files from Apple Live Photos) of life-sized dancing mascots of IAC 2026, movies one, image two, image three, and image four. (I saved two JPEG images from these 4 Apple Live Photos in the image gallery, too.)
• An image of the screen during a presentation which includes a photo of ESA (French) astronaut Sophie Adenot during a spacewalk, featuring the patch with the flag of France on her left shoulder.
• An image of AR-MOON-DILLO, the winner of the mascot competition for Houston being the site of IAC 2029. The loser was INTER-STELLA-THE-STEER.
• An image of the booth for the UAE.
• Three images from an evening event from iSpace, a Japanese company, image one, image two, and image three.

Thursday, Day 4, October 8, 2026: The images appear below.

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• A second image of the booth for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The first image was presented above from Monday.
• Two images from the Türksat booth, image one and image two.
• An image of a man’s coat as he views the booths. Even with his backpack, we see his coat is decorated with an astronomy theme, a view a distant galaxies.
• An image of the booth of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
• Three images of ICECUBES (services for small payloads) from Space Applications Services of Belgium, image one, two, and three.
• Another image of the booth of the European Space Agency (ESA). “Explore and Discover,” and, “Elevating the Future of Europe.”An earlier image is posted above from Monday.
• An image of the booth for the International Aeronautical Federation (IAF), the parent group for IAC.
• An image and a movie (using the .mov Apple format for the movie) of a Dave Hanson Selfie with the two IAC 2026 Turtle Mascots
• A video (3 minutes) with an overview of the International Aeronautical Federation (IAF), the parent organization for the IAC. An iPhone recorded this from a TV monitor.
• Three images (images one, two, and three) featuring the booth for Bremen Germany (“City of Space“), their city logo (4 animals), and a giant image of those four animals in spacesuits, ha-ha. The cat’s tail is sticking out of the spacesuit. It’s going to be a tight fit for those donkey ears in their spacesuit helmet.
• An image of the booth of Vastara from UAE featuring additive manufacturing (3D printing)
• An image of the booth of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, including two model rockets, each about six feet tall
• Two images (one and two) from a session, “Securing the Space Commons: AI-Driven Space Traffic Management for a Crowded Orbit“
• Four images (one, two, three, and four) from a session, “Computing in Orbit.” David Hanson mentions an interesting tidbit of information, “Reducing the latency of information processing is the most important reason for in-orbit computing, more than power, water savings.”
• A short movie (using the .mov Apple format) of about 20 flags from about 20 nations on flagpoles flying in the wind at IAC 2026.

Friday, October 9, 2026, Day 4. The images appear below.

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• An image of a Friday agenda, including a second presentation (the first is from Tuesday above) by AIAA Houston Member Dr. Svetlana Hanson, “Gateway Avionics Command and Data Handling Architecture: Updated Network Concept of Operations.”
• An image of lots of children among the booths, since Friday is Public Day.