Abstract :
We all more or less aware of the fact that we are witnessing some important, even historical developments within the space world. We\´re in the midst of a paradigm shift in how we explore and develop space. We have heard the term "Private Space" more frequently so I will try to highlight some points of the "Private Space" paradigm. These are briefly summarized. RAST2015 has the primary objective of providing a forum for the presentation and review of recent developments in private and nontraditional space initiatives. These initiatives develop and use space technologies for objectives which have hitherto been considered exotic or unconventional, including new ways of accessing space with humans or robots. It has always been the wish and the goal of the organizers to make RAST 2015 a premier event in space technology developments especially those on the way to near future deployment and of interest to a large part of the space community. Dear Participants, we have strived to make each RAST conference better than the previous one. That is, a conference where papers submitted are increasing in number, quality and diversity of origin. As a natural consequence, we expect to get more attendance. In this year, we get papers with a full-text content and the number of submitted paper is above 200. We will be hearing from about half that number in the presentations by highly qualified space scientists and engineers from nearly 30 countries over the next 3 days. Besides the usual technology intensive topics like remote sensing, space robotics and satellite design, we have many papers, even dedicated sessions in other areas like space law and international cooperation.
