It is our pleasure to announce that the 19th Electromagnetic Launch Symposium (EML) will be hosted by the French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis (ISL) in Saint-Louis, France on June 18 – 22, 2018. The 19th meeting is returning to Europe after a very successful 18th EML that was well attended and so graciously hosted in 2016 by Wuhan University in Wuhan, China. As the previous eighteen symposiums have, the 19th EML will bring together engineers and scientists who are intrigued by or who are already actively researching critical technologies for accelerating macroscopic objects or projectiles to hypervelocities using electromagnetic or electrothermochemical launchers. This international meeting will provide a forum for the exchange of scientific and technical information between industry, academic institutions and research organizations on the broad range of current and emerging research areas in the EML field.

The EML Symposium is the leading technical event for the discussion of these technologies and everyone is welcome to attend and contribute to the discussions. We are at the threshold of a new era in the applications of electromagnetic launch technology. Significant developments in hypervelocity electromagnetic launch and in hypervelocity high-G guidance and control components have provided the impetus for exploring advanced electromagnetic launchers capable of providing revolutionary new capabilities. The ability to use electromagnetic energy to controllably propel objects to extremely high speeds has broad and important consequences for many elements of our society, including transportation, communications, energy, national defense, and space. The technology for using electromagnetic energy pulses to accelerate materials to extremely high speeds is only now sufficiently advanced that it is being exploited to evaluate the survivability of space structures and the survivability and lethality of military weapons systems. Electromagnetic launchers are now capable of accelerating objects to such high speeds that projectiles are capable of traveling many hundreds of kilometers or penetrating the most advance modern armors, and there is a renewed and growing interest in using electromagnetic launchers to reach sufficiently high speeds to put objects in orbit around the earth.

As the chairmen of the conference, we strongly encourage anyone who is performing research related to EML technology to submit an abstract for presentation at the symposium. We are very excited to welcome all of our attendees to Saint-Louis, France and to share in the technical discussions that will be held. See you in Saint-Louis in 2018!