Choose your rooms for Sunday’s ESA Open Day
Where will you go? Register now to join us for ESA’s virtual Open Day 2020 at ESTEC this Sunday. Registrations are open until midday on Friday.
To participate in the ninth annual ESA Open Day at ESTEC 2020 requires registration, with one registration needed per household or viewing group. For people interested in following along without actively participating – including ESA personnel – there will also be a live video feed via ESA Web TV.
Participants will sign in to a virtual lobby, then be free to choose which ‘rooms’ they attend:
Room 1 – Careers at ESA A room of presentations about space careers. From running space missions to 3D printing spacecraft to planning to keep astronauts alive and well in deep space, ESA personnel will give first-person details of their jobs, how they got started and tips for working in the space sector. As a bonus, participants will also have the option of one-on-one chats with ESA’s Human Resources team members.
Room 2 – Exploring ESA’s Technical Heart Take a virtual tour around (and under) ESA’s largest establishment, ESTEC, as well as a visit to the Hertz radio chamber to learn the contribution space can make to the global blight of marine plastic. Plus YouTuber Scott Manley teams up with ESTEC’s Concurrent Design Facility to fly Rosetta in Kerbal Space Program.
Room 3 – Astronauts and Space Rocks The best way to learn about space is to talk to someone who’s been there: ESA astronauts Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti will answer questions live, with Jean-Francois Clervoy and Alexander Gerst contributing talks, along with Space Rocks – celebrating the art and culture of space.
Room 4 – ESA Education Details of our programmes bringing space to school and university classrooms: ESA School Projects for primary and secondary students, ESERO for space-based teaching resources and ESA Academy for university students, offering involvement in hands-on space projects.
Room 5 – ESA and the Environment Focusing on how space technology helps care for our planet, including discussion of how satellites have become a key tool in tracking climate change and the environmental benefits of satellite navigation, while a tour around ESA’s Φ-lab will show how new ways of using satellite data enhance our understanding of the Earth system.
Room 6 – NL Space For Dutch speakers: the umbrella organisation for Dutch space companies and institutions brings together space experts and businesses from across the Netherlands to present their world-class solutions to global challenges. And don’t miss the NL Space quiz!
Room 7 – Public Space This room will be featured live on ESA Web TV, and includes discussions of ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission, the Agency’s Clean Space initiative to clean up space and popular YouTuber Scott Manley will be live-playing Kerbal Space Program, to show how BepiColombo is travelling to Mercury.
Room 8 – What’s Next in Space? Come here to learn about ESA’s future missions and programmes, including Europe’s pivotal role in the Orion spacecraft soon to take humans back to the Moon, plans for exploring Mars and an ambitious undertaking to remove dangerous space debris from orbit.
The ESA Open Day at ESTEC 2020 will have the theme of ‘ESA and the Environment’. Space professionals know the importance of sustainability: the finite resources of a space mission must be managed carefully to keep it running. The same is true down here on spaceship Earth.
To register, click here.