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Merlintrader • Event Radar
Space, Defense & AI: the events that can move the narrative
A focused calendar of major conferences, industry summits, government-facing events and selected company watchpoints across space, defense and artificial intelligence. The goal is not to list everything: it is to flag the dates most likely to produce contracts, product roadmaps, procurement signals, partnerships, demonstrations or other market-relevant developments.
Last verified: September 14, 2026
Importance scale:●●●●● potential major catalyst / market-moving event●●●●○ very high relevance●●●○○ relevant●●○○○ secondary●○○○○ monitoring only
Major conferences & industry events
Priority is based on the concentration of decision-makers, procurement exposure, listed-company participation and the probability of meaningful announcements. Ratings are editorial and can change as agendas evolve.
| Date | Event | Location | Sector | Listed names / themes to watch | Importance | Why it matters | Official |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 14–17, 2026 | World Space Business Week | Paris, France | SPACE | RKLB, LUNR, MDA, PL, SATL | ●●●●● | C-suite space financing, infrastructure, Earth observation and commercial-space strategy. Confirmed 2026 agenda includes Rocket Lab CFO Adam Spice, Intuitive Machines, MDA Space and Planet. | Agenda ↗ |
| Sep 14–16, 2026 | AFA Air, Space & Cyber Conference | National Harbor, MD | DEFENSE SPACE | KTOS, ONDS, PLTR, LUNR, RKLB, defense primes | ●●●●● | Direct exposure to USAF, Space Force and defense-industry requirements. Key themes include Golden Dome, space superiority, battle management, autonomy and AI-enabled combat effects. | Agenda ↗ |
| Sep 15–17, 2026 | AI Infra Summit | Santa Clara, CA | AI | NVDA, AMD, INTC, QCOM, NBIS, CRWV, AWS, Microsoft | ●●●●● | One of the most concentrated events for AI compute, networking, memory, data centers and AI factories. 2026 agenda includes NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and major hyperscalers. | Agenda ↗ |
| Oct 5–9, 2026 | 77th International Astronautical Congress | Antalya, Türkiye | SPACE | Global launch, satellite, lunar and space-infrastructure ecosystem | ●●●●○ | The broadest international space gathering of the autumn, with agencies, academia and industry in one place. Useful for program updates, partnerships and competitive read-throughs. | Official ↗ |
| Oct 12–14, 2026 | AUSA Annual Meeting & Exposition | Washington, DC | DEFENSE AI | Autonomy, drones, C2, AI, counter-UAS, defense tech | ●●●●○ | Major U.S. Army/defense procurement forum with more than 750 exhibits. Strong read-through potential for autonomous systems, drones, sensors, communications and AI-enabled battlefield technology. | Official ↗ |
| Nov 17–20, 2026 | Microsoft Ignite | San Francisco, CA | AI | MSFT ecosystem, cloud, agents, enterprise AI | ●●●●○ | Major enterprise-AI and cloud event. Relevant for agentic AI, platform roadmaps, infrastructure partnerships and enterprise deployment signals. | Official ↗ |
| Nov 17–19, 2026 | Space Tech Expo Europe | Bremen, Germany | SPACE DEFENSE | Space hardware, smallsats, connectivity, supply chain | ●●●●○ | Europe’s largest B2B space event, with 1,000+ exhibiting companies and four conference tracks covering the end-to-end space supply chain. | Official ↗ |
| Nov 29–Dec 4, 2026 | AWS re:Invent | Las Vegas, NV | AI | AMZN, NVDA, AMD, cloud/AI infrastructure partners | ●●●●● | One of the year’s most important cloud and AI-infrastructure events, with potential for new accelerators, partnerships, model services, networking and data-center architecture announcements. | Agenda ↗ |
| Nov 30–Dec 3, 2026 | NVIDIA GTC Washington, D.C. | Washington, DC | AI GOV/DEF | NVDA, AI factories, physical AI, HPC, government ecosystem | ●●●●● | Jensen Huang keynote plus government, scientific and industry participation. The Washington setting makes the event particularly relevant for sovereign AI, physical AI, HPC and public-sector adoption. | Official ↗ |
| Dec 6–13, 2026 | NeurIPS 2026 | Sydney / Atlanta / Paris | AI | Frontier AI research, models, optimization, infrastructure | ●●●○○ | Less directly tied to near-term earnings, but one of the world’s most important AI research conferences and a source of technical read-throughs for model architecture and compute demand. | Dates ↗ |
| Mar 1–3, 2027 | AFA Warfare Symposium 2027 | Colorado | DEFENSE SPACE | USAF, Space Force, defense primes, autonomy & space systems | ●●●●○ | Next major AFA policy-and-technology checkpoint after Air, Space & Cyber, useful for budget priorities, operational requirements and defense-industry roadmaps. | AFA events ↗ |
Selected company & sector watchpoints
These are not all conferences. They are high-value dates already tracked in Merlintrader’s Trading Events calendar because they can materially change the narrative for space, defense or AI names.
| Date / window | Watchpoint | Ticker | Importance | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 24, 2026 | Iridium special meeting on Rocket Lab merger | RKLB / IRDM | ●●●●● | Shareholder vote on the announced merger; regulatory approvals remain separate from the vote. |
| Sep 30, 2026 window | New SpaceShip glide-flight Q3 target window closes | SPCE | ●●●●○ | Company guidance points to Q3 2026 for the beginning of flight testing; exact day remains unconfirmed. |
| Oct 6, 2026 | Rezolve AI Investor Day | RZLV | ●●●●○ | Live demonstrations and a deeper look at agentic commerce and AI infrastructure; watch for commercial detail and guidance context. |
| Late 2026 | Planet Owl demonstrator window | PL | ●●●○○ | Demonstrator for the Owl constellation, combining Earth observation with onboard NVIDIA GPU capability. Exact launch date remains unconfirmed. |
| 2026 target window | IM-3 / Moon Base III lunar landing | LUNR | ●●●●● | Operationally critical lunar mission and first flight of the Nova-C Trinity configuration; exact date remains subject to mission scheduling. |
How to read this calendar. Importance is not a forecast of share-price direction. A five-dot event means the date deserves active monitoring because the probability of meaningful information is high. It does not mean an announcement will be positive, or that an announcement is guaranteed.
Source policy. Conference dates and agendas are checked against official event organizers. Company-specific watchpoints are cross-checked against company filings, investor-relations releases or other primary documentation where available. Dates marked as windows or estimated are explicitly separated from confirmed calendar dates. This page is educational research, not investment advice; always validate time-sensitive information before acting.
