Coimbra is about to feel a long way from a quiet university town. On October 29 and 30, the city hosts GLEX Ignition 2026, a two-day space summit pulling in some seriously heavy hitters: NASA scientist Kelsey Young, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen and former NASA Ames director Pete Worden, among 11 international speakers.
The line-up reads like a tour of current space science. Young, who led lunar science on Artemis II — the crewed lunar flyby completed earlier this year — will explain the mission's science and how it gets woven into flight operations and Mission Control. Mogensen, a former commander of the International Space Station who now heads the European Astronaut Corps, opens the main programme. Sue Smrekar, principal investigator on NASA's VERITAS mission, brings Venus into the frame, while Worden speaks on Breakthrough Starshot and the push to explore beyond our solar system.
Sessions also range wider than rockets: Earth observation, coastal and forest ecology, extreme medicine, astronomy and the meeting point between scientific exploration and ancestral knowledge.
Why Coimbra? Organisers argue it is no accident. The city's Instituto Pedro Nunes ran an ESA Business Incubation Centre programme that, between 2014 and 2024, backed more than 60 space-related companies in Portugal, and this year launched a new phase as ESA BIC Centro. The University of Coimbra has added an Aerospace Engineering degree, and local firms such as Neuraspace — which applies artificial intelligence to space traffic and debris management — are already operating internationally. University rector Amílcar Falcão has called Coimbra a national beacon in the space field.
Practically, the main programme runs at the Convento São Francisco on October 29 from 9.20am into the afternoon. Day two brings Coimbra Supernova — Frontiers in Action, a smaller, limited-capacity forum with two keynote sessions and audience Q&A. The event is organised by Expanding World Portugal with The Explorers Club of New York, with the full programme on the GLEX Summit website.
For travellers, it is a neat excuse to visit an underrated Portuguese city at a lively moment. Coimbra pairs one of Europe's oldest universities — a UNESCO World Heritage site with its famous baroque library — with a compact, hillside old town on the Mondego river. If you are in town for the summit, build in time for the university quarter, the fado tradition unique to the city, and day trips to nearby Conímbriga's Roman ruins or the bucolic Lousã mountain villages. Late October is shoulder season: fewer crowds, mild days, and the odd shower.
Even if you cannot snag a Supernova seat, the summit signals something bigger: Portugal is quietly building a space sector, and Coimbra wants to be its centre of gravity. Hearing an Artemis science lead or a Space Station commander speak in a converted convent is the kind of overlap travel rarely offers. Check the GLEX Summit site for tickets and the detailed schedule before travelling.
