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School children were able to take part in competitions, workshops, VR and AR experiences, flight simulator exercises and much more.\u00a0For students and professors alike, the festival introduced amazing airspace engineering projects, looking ahead at the professions of the future, both in space and on Earth. Representatives of the Romanian airspace industry showcased their latest technologies, solutions and products, and presented future investment opportunities.<\/p>\n
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The special guests of the festival were the NASA astronaut Susan Kilrain, the Axiom Space chief astronaut Michael L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda, the retired NASA astronaut Dominic Antonelli and the ESA astronaut S\u0142awosz Uzna\u0144ski.<\/p>\n
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An engineer of Polish descent, S\u0142awosz has been working for the European Space Agency (ESA) since 2023, as a project astronaut. Between 2018 and 2020, he was an Engineer in Charge of the Large Hadron Collider – LHC, being responsible for the day-to-day 24\/7 operations of CERN\u2019s largest accelerator and assuring its optimum exploitation.<\/p>\n
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An MIT graduate and retired NASA astronaut, Dominic Anthony Antonelli served as pilot on 2 Space Shuttle missions: the STS-119 which launched in 2009 and delivered the final pair of power-generating solar array wings and truss element to the International Space Station, and the STS-132, launched in May 2010, which saw the delivery of the Russian Mini-Research Module 1 (MRM-1) to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
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Michael L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda is a veteran of 3 Space Shuttle missions and one International Space Station mission. He is known for having performed ten spacewalks so far in his career, presently holding the second longest all-time EVA (extra-vehicular activity) duration record (first among NASA astronauts) and having the fifth-longest spaceflight of any American at the length of 215 days. L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda commanded Axiom-1, the first ever all-private team of commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station, and in 2024 he was the commander of the Axiom 3 mission.<\/p>\n
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Commander Susan Kilrain is a renowned astronaut, a distinguished navy test pilot, and author. She is the youngest person, and one of only three women, to pilot the space shuttle. She served 20 years in the navy, paving the way for women. She has flown more than 3,000 flight hours in over 30 different aircraft, and she was awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal. She is currently a motivational speaker and encourages young people to pursue a STEM career.<\/p>\n
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RRI\u2019s Eugen Cojocariu had a short talk with Susan Kilrain at Poli SpaceFest in Bucharest, discussing how Earth is seen from space, the difficulties of becoming an astronaut, and why we need astronauts.<\/p>\n