Festive opening of Cometlab

The Dutch space sector marked a significant milestone on 7th October 2025, with the festive opening of CometLab, the Netherlands’ first laboratory fully dedicated to space innovation.

Located at the heart of NL Space Campus in Noordwijk, right next to ESA’s ESTEC facility, CometLab serves as a dynamic collaboration hub and advanced makerspace. It brings together companies, researchers, students, and space professionals to prototype satellites, ground stations, optical systems, and other space-inspired technologies.

The official opening event, held as part of NL Space Week 2025, featured a celebratory atmosphere with networking, community highlights, and speeches emphasizing accessibility in space technology. Notable attendees included astronaut André Kuipers, who joined in opening the new facility alongside other key figures Meindert Stolk from the Province of South Holland and Dietmar Pilz from the Dutch space ecosystem.

“CometLab is designed to make space accessible to everyone,” said representatives from NL Space Campus. The lab functions as a modern digital manufacturing and collaboration space, enabling hands-on work on real space projects and fostering innovation across startups, scale-ups, and established organizations.

The opening was widely covered in Dutch media, including RTL News, and has been hailed as a boost for the national space economy. CometLab is expected to strengthen the Netherlands’ position in Europe’s growing space sector by providing state-of-the-art facilities for prototyping and cross-disciplinary cooperation.

For more information and to get involved, visit the official CometLab website or NL Space Campus.