How do fourteen organisations, six jurisdictions and one shared mission become a working European project? The first step was to bring the people behind AEAAS into the same room.

On 9 July, the AEAAS Consortium gathered in Lisbon for its formal Kick-off Meeting, hosted by Abreu Advogados. The meeting marked the start of the project’s implementation phase and gave partners the opportunity to move beyond introductions into the practical decisions needed for the year ahead.

The day began with a common project session covering governance, reporting, quality assurance and the overall implementation calendar. Partners then worked through the connections between the six Work Packages, clarifying where legal analysis, operational expertise, regulatory assessment, stakeholder engagement and communication will need to reinforce one another.

What did the Consortium align on?

• A shared governance and coordination framework for the 12-month project.
• The responsibilities, interfaces and first priorities of each Work Package.
• How evidence will move from regulatory mapping to assessment, pathways, common practices and stakeholder dialogue.
• The need to keep public communication connected to substantive project progress rather than treating dissemination as a separate activity.

One project, several forms of expertise

Dedicated Work Package sessions brought together perspectives that rarely sit in the same discussion: spaceport operations, launch systems, propulsion, law, export control, regulation, industry networks and institutional expertise. This complementarity is central to AEAAS, because credible regulatory pathways must work not only on paper, but also for the organisations expected to apply them in real launch environments.

Kick-off at a glance

9 Jul meeting date

Lisbon host city

14 organisations

6 jurisdictions

6 Work Packages

Guidance for the implementation phase

The Consortium also welcomed Athanasios Petridis, Project Officer at the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). His contribution helped frame the expectations for technical implementation, reporting and communication under the Horizon Europe programme and provided partners with a common reference point as the project entered its operational phase.

With the Kick-off completed, AEAAS now moves into evidence gathering and comparison. The Alliance will review regulatory practices across more than 40 jurisdictions and more than 30 spaceport-related regulatory topics. The Lisbon meeting ensured that this work begins from a coordinated plan, with clear links between analysis, practical experience and stakeholder input.

The conversation starts here

The Kick-off was not an end in itself. It was the point at which the Consortium agreed how it will work together — and how regulators, operators, launch providers, industry actors, researchers and institutions will be invited into the process as the project develops.

Access the AEAAS Press Release and Meet Our Consortium

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