I recently attended National Student Space Conference 2025, the second time I’ve attended this event (after 2024). This year it was hosted at the University of Leicester, a really lovely little campus, emphasis on little. I actually toured the campus while I was in school, and while I really liked it, I’m glad I ended up at the much bigger-feeling University of Leeds.

As usual I attended as part of LURA. This year we were an officially registered branch which meant we had our own stand there too.

The highlights from the event this year were:

• Talking to sponsoring companies such as CGI, Skyrora, Viasat, and AstroScale.
• A talk by Tom Walkinshaw, founder of Alba Orbital, on the history of his company and the business of PocketQubes.
• Daniel Hao’s talk on the future of AI and Robotics in space.
• Meeting with other student rocketry teams, including Sunride, StrathSEDS, CranSEDS.
• The incredibly useful talk (and many conversations) with Jack Tyler from the CAA on UK rocketry regulations.