On the 8th and 9th June 2021, the 4th annual ScyLight workshop took place online.
This year the annual event took place online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the event was attended by 284 attendees, totalling 382 registrations to the event, including national delegations, industrial representatives of ESA Member States, ESA staff members and academic researchers. It once more provided the opportunity to present outcomes of ongoing activities in industry, academia and agencies as well as the right occasion to provide an overview of on-going ESA activities under the ARTES 4.0 Strategic Programme Line Optical Communication - ScyLight. 
Pitch talks covering roadmaps as well as technical presentations carried out by industry and ESA experts underlined the development and the achievements obtained by the optical & quantum communications community.
ESA presented its optical and quantum technology roadmap, updated the audience on the ongoing in-house developments and stood side by side with colleagues from the European Commission talking about the future of optical and quantum communications in Europe and Canada.
Thirty-seven speakers highlighted the successes and progresses since the last ScyLight workshop, providing an overview of current and strategic activities by the European and Canadian industry, ESA, EC and researchers.
During the workshop, speakers covered a wide range of topics from quantum communication strategies, first technology developments as well as concrete advances in the technologies for Laser Communication Terminals, Optical Feeder Links and optical Satcom, all the way to photonic components developments.
The first general feedback from the audience was positive towards the new online tool “Let’s get digital” used for the event, and led to some interesting interactions between speakers and audience. This year it also included a networking carrousel, that virtually connected random participants to exchange for a short amount of time.
Elodie Viau, ESA Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, said “ESA is extremely pleased to enable continuous investment in the development of highly innovative solutions and services by European and Canadian manufacturers and operators. ESA is committed to develop initiatives in support of the European commercial satellite telecommunications industry and generate pioneering technology in this domain for the benefit of Europe’s worldwide competitiveness. Innovation and pioneering spirits have persisted throughout the global pandemic, and Europe and Canada are ready to strengthen their global leadership in the optical communication technology domain."
Harald Hauschildt, ESA ScyLight Strategic Programme Line Manager said “It is evident that key stakeholders have finally made Optical Communication technologies a priority on their strategic roadmaps. Events such as the fourth ScyLight WS 2021 should allow for both high level overviews, as well as in depth technical presentations. I think for the upcoming installations of the WS there is still room to improve on this fine balance. ESA’s visionary concept of an Internet Beyond the Clouds / HydRON was referenced by a number of presentations and is considered the next logical but challenging element to reach the ScyLight objective of honing industry excellence and to establish market leadership for European and Canadian industries. We are looking forward to the next installation of the ScyLight Annual Workshop, hopefully once more in person.”
The ESA ScyLight team would like to thank all the attendees for the success of the online event!
