ANTALYA, Türkiye, Oct. 11, 2026 - The 77th International Astronautical Congress opened in Antalya, Türkiye, on 11 October.^[1] On the eve of the congress, South Africa's national space agency, SANSA, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Turkish Space Agency.^[2] SANSA chief executive Humbulani Mudau and Turkish Space Agency president Yusuf Kıraç signed the document,^[3] which covers cooperation in space science.^[4] South Africa hosts the only African national pavilion at the congress, with 13 of its space companies.^[5] Space agency heads from Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa and other African countries attended the third IAF Global Space Leaders Summit,^[6] though African industry had only a small presence in the exhibition.^[7] Peru's space agency, CONIDA, also attended. Its head, Major General Roberto Melgar Sheen, met young Peruvian participants on 11 October,^[8] and the agency presented a proposal for a federated architecture to improve information exchange, protect data sovereignty and tackle growing congestion in low-Earth orbit.^[9] Impact Insight. The International Astronautical Congress, organised each year by the International Astronautical Federation, is the largest annual gathering of space agencies, companies and researchers, and agreements signed there often shape cooperation between newer space nations. The link to planetary defense is indirect: shared data and cooperation on crowded low-Earth orbit are the same foundations that international asteroid warning networks rely on.