Towards the end of 2024, the nationwide association Sveriges Rymdstudenter was founded, as a member association of the federation Space Students Sweden. 2025 can be summarised as the year in which both this association and the entire student federation were truly brought to life and took important steps towards becoming a living and future-proof community for university students in Sweden with an interest in space. Read here about some of the highlights of the past year.
Rymdforum 2025
The space year got properly kicked off in May when Rymdforum Trollhättan took place. The Rymdforum conference is held every other year and brings together industry, academia and decision-makers for intensive days covering everything space. This year was particularly defining, with many united voices highlighting the very rapid and significant development taking place in the global space industry and Sweden’s need to not only keep up with developments but, according to many, catch up after an underperformance specifically within commercialization. Ahead of the conference, the association had, through its Discord server and from the federation’s members, collected data and opinions on their perception of the Swedish space industry. During the conference, Sveriges Rymdstudenter’s chairperson, also Vice President of Space Students Sweden’s federation board, Hugo Wijk, presented the results during a lunch talk to all those present. Namely, that many of our members felt that the opportunities for space engineers and the space industry in Sweden were not sufficiently inspiring.
Also present at Rymdforum was the student association AESIR with their impressive hybrid rocket Mjollnir, as well as other members and representatives from across the young space movement.
Online lectures
In order to be able to offer learning and community to all members of Sveriges Rymdstudenter, we focused on creating platforms and opportunities for online participation. For this purpose, the association runs a Discord server where, over the course of the year, a number of online lectures have been held, either from invited guest lecturers or members.
During 2025, the following lectures were made available to our members:
- Anton Vannesjö – How to do model rocketry in Sweden
- Shane Draney – Blue Origin (in collaboration with the local Astronomisk Ungdom association SIRIUS)
- Petter Lindberg – Remos Space Systems (provided by LTU)
- Anton Lindbro – The shaping of planetary nebulae
Board Weekends
During the year, Sveriges Rymdstudenter was granted a project grant from Astronomisk Ungdom to hold joint board weekends together with the federation Space Students Sweden. In the autumn, the first of these board weekends was held, with focus on how the national community should be strengthened and how the federation should reach the goal of 1,000 members by 2026.
In January 2026, a further board weekend was organised with a focus on upcoming activities and projects during the year, as well as work on a project grant application to MUCF.
Member recruitment
During 2025, Sveriges Rymdstudenter worked together with all other associations in Space Students Sweden towards the goal of meeting MUCF’s requirements in order to be able to apply for their annual organisational grant for youth organisations. The central requirement, which the federation had not previously met, is that the federation’s member associations together must reach 1,000 members aged 6–25. This required collaboration between all associations in the federation, each working on their own to increase their own activities and reach more members, as well as collectively to spread awareness of the federation. For this purpose, Sveriges Rymdstudenter ordered patches to be distributed to members.
The result exceeded expectations, and at the turn of the year Space Students Sweden had 1,182 members aged 6–25 (almost a doubling from 2024!), and 1,370 members in total.
This means that the federation can now begin the work of applying for this organisational grant!
From those of us who have worked on all of this throughout the year, I would like to emphasise what a joy it has been to see all the enormous commitment that exists out there among our universities in our student associations, and among all those who give of their dedication to contribute to national projects and board work. You have not only chosen to devote your time to something that is greater than yourselves, but dared to believe in something as young as our student movement, where what drives us forward is a shared vision of what we could become.
We all very much look forward to building upon on that, and together with the entire youth space movement build an important community at our universities that will welcome many generations of space enthusiasts going forward.
/ Hugo Wijk, Vice President Space Students Sweden & Chairperson Sveriges Rymdstudenter
During the conference in Trollhättan, Space Students Sweden and students’ opinions on the space industry were presented during a lunch talk
The student association AESIR from KTH participated in Rymdforum 2025 and brought along their flagship rocket Mjollnir.
One of the year’s online lectures was given by Anton Vannesjö from the association SMRK, who talked about how model rocketry is conducted in Sweden.
The board of Space Students Sweden 2026, consisting of (l. to r.)
Jakob Hüttner, Manfred Mårtensson, Anton Lindbro, Rebecka Astudillo (inserted), Simon Karlsson, Hugo Wijk
Sveriges Rymdstudenter was visible in February 2026 at ‘Matematiken och Fysiken i Näringslivet’ at Stockholm University