Zero to Orbit

Design a space mission in a day, sponsored by IEEE GRSS QUEST 🛰️ Open to technical women 👩🏼‍💻👩🏾‍💻👩🏻‍💻

​Ever wondered how a space mission actually gets designed? The room well before the launch day where a group of engineers sit down and work out whether an idea can survive in space at all?

​That room exists at the European Space Agency (ESA). It's called the Concurrent Design Facility, and it's where future missions are shaped from rough sketch to orbit.

​The event is sponsored by QUEST, the IEEE GRSS Quantum Earth Science and Technology Technical Committee, and we're beyond excited to welcome Agathe Carpentier, a Space Systems Engineer at ESA, who will be running our own mini CDF at the University of Oxford during London Tech Week. Agathe is joining in a personal capacity and not as an official representative of ESA.

​You'll work in small teams, each of you taking an expert role (propulsion, power, comms) to design a mission from scratch. By the end you'll understand how a mission comes together, how the people behind them think, and how each piece tech earns its place on board.

​This one's for the deep tech crowd: quantum, hardware, anything you think could end up off the ground (NB: you don't need an aerospace background) 🚀

​Application only, spots highly limited.

​👑 The Tech Bros is the world’s first all-female, all-technical accelerator (8.7% acceptance rate), combining a fully-funded hacker house in Norway with six weeks of hybrid support to go from idea to MVP. Outside the accelerator cycle we run hackathons, co-working days, and retreats to spark entrepreneurship in technical women & demystify the startup journey. The Tech Bros are powered by Goodwin in 2026 🚀

​👑 Goodwin: We’re connected. We’re strategic. We’re with you. As trusted legal partners in the innovation space, we help visionaries navigate from start through to scale. With our expansive network and proactive approach, we prepare you for what’s next. We know tech. Get to know us at goodwinlaw.com

​🌍 QUEST is the IEEE GRSS Quantum Earth Science and Technology Technical Committee, advancing quantum-based methods and solutions for geosciences and remote sensing. Through its QS4EO and QC4EO working groups, QUEST connects researchers, engineers, and innovators to explore quantum sensing, quantum computing, and emerging frontiers in Earth observation 🚀