Post-Alpbach School Summer School event 2017
Status: Call for the applications closed on 8 September 2017; only opened to students who participated in the Alpbach Summer School 2017. Event delivered.
Date: 20-24 November 2017
Description: Students got the opportunity to carry on working on the PAHST (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Space Telescope) project proposed by the team Blue during the Alpbach Summer School 2017. The objective of this event was to prepare a scientific paper to be presented at an international conference or published in a scientific journal. Students were supported by ESA and external experts, and had the opportunity to use the ESA Academy’s Concurrent Design Facility (CDF).
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Guidelines for the event |
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Day 2 |
Mission redefinition |
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Day 3 |
Third CDF sessions |
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Day 4 |
Conclusion of CDF sessions |
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Day 5 |
Finalisation of oral presentation |
Rosetta Science Operations Scheduling Legacy Workshop 2017
Status: Call for the applications closed. Workshop delivered.
Date: 3-6 October 2017
Description: During this workshop university students learned how science operations scheduling is done at ESA and what tools are used. Exercises were performed with the support of the experts who did the scheduling for the real mission using the actual science operations scheduling software (MAPPS) that produced the final experiment commanding for the spacecraft. These exercises were supported by lectures given by various members of the Rosetta team including the project scientist, spacecraft operations manager, ESA Philae system engineer and individuals who were involved in building the actual spacecraft. In addition, the students learned how to access the science data that the science operations schedules produced via the Planetary Science Archive.
Watch the training session video.
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Rosetta mission overview |
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Day 2 |
Rosetta Science Ground Segment |
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Day 3 |
Philae Lander |
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Day 4 |
End of Mission operations |
Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Operations training course 2017
Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.
Date: 19 – 22 September 2017
Description: Students learned about:
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the challenges of operating a spacecraft (as opposed to designing a spacecraft)
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the operator’s view on all the spacecraft subsystems and the design features to implement in order to operate them
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‘physiological’ traps to be avoided during operations and testing
Taught by an ESA expert from the Advanced Operations Concepts Office of ESA’ European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), Darmstadt, Germany, the course was delivered through formal lectures without excessive mathematics or technical jargon, but with a heavy emphasis placed on the interaction with the students.
Schedule:
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Day 1 & 2 |
Introduction – the difference between design and operations engineers |
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Day 3 & 4 |
Power (Storage) |
Concurrent Engineering Challenge 2017
Status: Call for applications closed. Challenge delivered.
Date: 11-15 September 2017
Description: The ESA Academy Concurrent Engineering Challenge featured groups of 15 to 25 students, each one supervised by two system engineers in the four Concurrent Design Facilities (CDFs) in Polytechnic of Turin (Italy), University of Strathclyde (United Kingdom), Technical University of Madrid (Spain) and the ESA Academy’s Training and Learning Centre (Belgium). Groups were given a specific mission to design in four days.
Students in each group were divided into small teams of two or three to cover the following disciplines: structures, configuration, power, mechanisms, thermal, attitude and orbit control system for a satellite (AOCS), propulsion, optics / sensors, trajectory analysis, and communications / data handling. Students within each small team created a subsystem concept in order to achieve the mission parameters using the Concurrent Engineering approach.
The groups did not compete against each other. Instead, they used video conferencing to share each day’s progress, raise any particular difficulties they were facing, and receive helpful input from the other participants. At the end of the week, each group presented their final design.
Ultimately, students involved in the challenge learned about the Concurrent Engineering approach and its benefits, and how to use the Open Concurrent Design Tool (OCDT).
Schedule for the group in ESA Academy’s Training and Learning Centre:
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Introduction Concurrent Engineering Approach |
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Day 2 |
Each group presentation general presentation |
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Day 3 |
First iteration of all subsystems |
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Day 4 |
Finalisation of the concept |
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Day 5 |
Final design consolidation & any open issues |
ESA-ELGRA Gravity-Related Research Summer School 2017
Status: Call for applications closed. Summer School delivered.
Date: 26 – 30 June 2017
Description: During these four and a half days summer school, students will be introduced to gravity-related research by ELGRA and ESA experts from across Europe.
Through-out stimulating lectures about the current research under microgravity and hypergravity conditions in Life and Physical sciences, students will appreciate the benefits of performing research at different g levels.
Moreover, the students will work within small groups to come up with potential ideas for future gravity-related experiment student projects, also with the benefit of the existing ESA Educational platforms such as the parabolic flights, the human centrifuge or the ISS.
Schedule::
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Day 1 |
Introduction to ESA, ESA programmes and opportunities |
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Day 2 |
Life science research part 1 |
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Day 3 |
Life science research part 2 |
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Day 4 |
Life science research part 3 |
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Day 5 |
Team project presentations |
Product Assurance and Safety Training Course 2017
Status: Call for Applications closed. Training course delivered.
Date: 12 – 15 June 2017
Description: During this four days training course, students will be given an understanding of the PA&S engineer role in order to increase their awareness and the interest on PA&S and present them the different related disciplines.
Though-out face-to-face lectures from several ESA’s PA&S managers and PA&S discipline experts, students will understand that PA&S is an integral part of the engineering activities playing a role in the development, design, test philosophy, build and operation of the system.
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Overall Context of Space Projects |
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Day 2 |
Overview of Product Assurance in Space Business |
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Day 3 |
PA Disciplines: Software Product Assurance |
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Day 4 |
PA Disciplines: Materials & Processes |
Standardisation Training Course 2017
Status: Call for Applications closed. Training course delivered.
Date: 6 – 9 June 2017
Description: During this four days training course, students will be given an introduction to ECSS system and will be taught the importance of using standards. They will be also provided with an overview of how/why standards are used in different disciplines at ESA.
Though-out face-to-face lectures from several experts, students will appreciate the importance of ECSS system, which will be an important part of their space-related career, complementing what they normally learn at university.
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Introduction to ECSS System |
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Day 2 |
PA&QA |
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Day 3 |
Thermal |
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Day 4 |
Electrical & Electronics |
Introduction to Space Law Training Course 2017
Status: Call for Applications closed. Training course delivered.
Date: 29 May – 2 June 2017
Description: The aim of this five days training course, students will be provided with an introductory overview of space law, why it is necessary today to regulate space activities and how it applies practically to space missions, from the smallest of projects like a university’s CubeSat project, the most famous feats of space endeavours like human spaceflight and the International Space Station right through to forward-looking questions like planetary defence.
By the end of this programme, students will appreciate the importance of law in the realisation of a space mission and they will have an overview of the international legal frameworks which governs the space activity today.
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Space Law at a Glance |
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Day 2 |
General Overview of National Space Law |
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Day 3 |
Legal Lifecycle (I): Contracting Practices |
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Day 4 |
Legal Lifecycle (V): Operations & In-Orbit Transfer of Ownership |
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Day 5 |
Security of Space Assets |
Concurrent Engineering Workshop – May 2017
Status: Call for applications closed. Workshop delivered.
Date: 09-12 May 2017
Description: Concurrent engineering is a method of designing and developing products in the space sector where all subsystems are designed simultaneously making the process more efficient.
During these 4 days workshops, students will learn about concurrent engineering and its benefits, taking advantage of the use of the ESA Academy’s Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) . Guided by ESA experts, the students will first learn to use the Open Concurrent Design Tool (OCDT) and identify design drivers. They will be then divided into groups of 2 or 3 to cover the several subsystems and, together with their groups, they will create a subsystem concept in order to later achieve an already identified mission concept using concurrent engineering.
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Introduction to the Mission and Concurrent Engineering |
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Day 2 |
First iteration of all Subsystems. |
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Day 3 |
Finalisation of the Concept |
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Day 4 |
Final Design Consolidation & any Open Issues |
Concurrent Engineering Workshop March 2017
Status: Call for applications closed. Workshop delivered
Date: 14-17 March 2017
Description: Concurrent engineering is a method of designing and developing products in the space sector where all subsystems are designed simultaneously making the process more efficient.
During these 4 days workshops, students learnt about concurrent engineering and its benefits, taking advantage of the use of the ESA Academy’s Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) . Guided by ESA experts, the students first learnt to use the Open Concurrent Design Tool (OCDT) and identified design drivers. They were then divided into groups of 2 or 3 to cover the several subsystems and, together with their groups, they created a subsystem concept in order to later achieve an already identified mission concept using concurrent engineering.More details.
Schedule::
|
Day 1 |
Introduction to the Mission and Concurrent Engineering |
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Day 2 |
First iteration of all Subsystems. |
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Day 3 |
Finalisation of the Concept |
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Day 4 |
Final Design Consolidation & any Open Issues |
Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Communications Training Course 2017
Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.
Date: 14-17 February 2017
Description: Students learnt about:
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the challenges of communicating with a spacecraft
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an operator’s view on all the spacecraft subsystems both on-board and on the ground
-
‘physiological’ traps to be avoided during operations and testing
Taught by an ESA expert from the Advanced Operations Concepts Office of ESA’ European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), Darmstadt, Germany, the course was delivered through formal lectures without excessive mathematics or technical jargon, but with a heavy emphasis placed on the interaction with the students.
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Introduction |
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Day 2 |
Demodulation |
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Day 3 |
Protocols |
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Day 4 |
Real Ground Stations |
Human Space Physiology Training Course 2017
Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.
Date: 30 January – 2 February 2017
Description: Throughout face-to-face and videoconference lectures, two groups of university students took part in this training course from two different locations: the ESA Academy’s Training and Learning Centre in Redu, Belgium and the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. Students were introduced to the human physiological effects of spaceflight and to the approaches to mitigate the effects of microgravity on the human body with the use of analogues and models of the space environment. They also were involved in a group project in order to increase their knowledge about a key physiological issue in Human Spaceflight.
The students can expect to be introduced to the following topics:
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What it’s really like to live in space
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The challenges, lessons, and successes that have led to permanent occupation of the International Space Station, and the conditions it must provide to protect and support life
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Human Space Physiology research is performed both in space and on Earth
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How the senses perceive being ‘weightless’ in an orbiting space vehicle
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How key physiological systems respond to microgravity, what mechanisms underlie these changes, and some approaches that may be used to mitigate such effects
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Major issues and challenges facing current human spaceflight and future space exploration.
Gravity-Related Experiments training week 2017
Status: Training week delivered.
Date: 16-19 January 2017
Description: The aim of this training week was to better prepare selected student teams for their participation in the ESA Academy Hands-on Space Projects’ Fly Your Thesis!, Drop Your Thesis! and Spin Your Thesis! Programmes. By providing them with the information and basic knowledge that is required to design, develop, test, and perform a gravity-related scientific experiment or technology demonstration students were helped to achieve their objectives. The idea was to optimize the transfer of know-how and expertise from the experts in the field to the students, before their experiment campaigns, through lectures, workshops and meetings with the experts. Hence, the objective was to increase the quality of collected data and the success rate of the students’ hands-on projects.
Schedule:
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Day 1 |
Introduction to ESA, ESA programmes and opportunities |
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Day 2 |
Project and Risk Management workshop |
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Day 3 |
Meet your experts (session 2) |
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Day 4 |
Experiment Automation workshop |
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