PSI at IAC 2025

IAC Side Counter Event: Spacewashing, Justice, and Genocide in Gaza

The Palestine Space Institute (PSI), together with (Un)common Cosmos, hosted a public counter-event on October 1, 2025, at the University of Sydney to confront the complicity of the space industry in colonialism, militarism, and genocide. Held alongside the International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2025), the event exposed how companies (including those exhibiting at and sponsoring the IAC) profit from war and colonial violence, highlighting the environmental and human destruction in Gaza, and creating space for justice-driven visions of space exploration.

This event served as a call to resist. To hold our industry accountable. To demand a future for space that is rooted in justice rather than violence.

This event took place on Gadigal Country, the traditional lands of the Gadigal peoples.

ark blue and teal poster with logos of Palestine Space Institute and (Un)Common Cosmos at the top. Title reads “Event Program.” Timeline lists: 4:00 – Introduction & Acknowledgement: Addressing IAC censorship. 4:10 – “Decolonial Practices in Space” by Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, Founder, University of the Underground. 4:25 – “As Above So Below: Genocide & Ecocide” by Juan Francisco Salazar, Professor, Western Sydney University. 4:40 – “Space and the Military Industrial Complex: Spacewashing Genocide at the IAC” by Sahba El-Shawa, Founder, Palestine Space Institute. 5:00 – “Rocket Launches & Weapons Testing: Addressing Australia’s Complicity in Genocide” by Casey Domingo and Harriet Hurley, Co-founders, (Un)Common Cosmos. 5:20 – Panel & Discussion moderated by Giuliana Rotola, Fellowship Coordinator, Palestine Space Institute.

Special IAC2025 Edition Database

Our PSI Space + MIC Database documents dozens of companies providing hardware, software, and services to both the space sector and the Israeli war machine. For IAC 2025, PSI prepared a special edition of the database below, which documents the ties between the space industry, militarism, and genocide, focusing on the companies and entities participating in this year's IAC.

Click a card to expand it and read further. You can find the full database, instructions on how to access it, and the original report with complete findings and analysis here.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse