Applications now open for Alpbach Summer School 2018
The next Alpbach Summer School will be held from 17 to 26 July 2018, and will focus on “Sample return from small Solar System bodies“. University students and young graduates have until 31 March 2018 to apply.
Held annually since 1975 in the beautiful Austrian Alps, the Alpbach Summer School enjoys a long tradition of providing in-depth teaching on different topics of space science and technology, with the aim of advancing the training and working experience of European university students and young graduates.
The purpose of the Summer School is to foster the practical application of knowledge derived from lectures, to develop organisational and group skills, and to encourage creativity. Teams will compete to design the best project, and will be judged by an independent jury of experts.
This year, 60 students and young graduates in engineering and science from ESA’s Member, Associate, and Cooperating states* will be selected to participate in the 42nd edition of the Alpbach Summer School.
The participants will be informed about past achievements and current issues, and will be invited to propose ideas to study the Solar System’s small bodies directly in-situ with spacecraft and, ideally, by returning samples to Earth in order to develop a much wider understanding of these small bodies, their properties, and what they can tell us about the evolution of the Solar System. The participants will be split into 4 teams. Each team will define the scientific objectives of a space mission to further explore the Solar System’s small bodies, and will provide a preliminary end-to-end design of a spacecraft and its scientific instruments, as well as mission and science operations that will meet their stated objectives. They will select and research the problem to be addressed by their specific space mission, and will work with their team members to meet difficult deadlines.
On the last day of the Summer School, each team will present a short mission study to a panel of experts, as well as to all the other teams, tutors, and lecturers.
The participants will be exposed to some real-life challenges, such as long working days (before proposal submission) and an expectation that they are able to immediately apply knowledge and techniques that they have only recently been exposed to. They will also have to handle the trials of establishing and maintaining an international and multi-disciplinary team composed of both scientists and engineers. They will need to balance scientific objectives and requirements with the realistic constraints of mission design, spacecraft design, and mission cost.
One of the study designs presented on the last day will be chosen for further elaboration by 20 selected Summer School participants during the Post-Alpbach Summer School event, which will take place between 26 and 30 November 2018 at the ESA Academy’s Training and Learning Centre in Belgium.
Application Deadline: 31 March 2018
Online Application: www.summerschoolalpbach.at
The Alpbach Summer School is organised by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). It is co-sponsored by ESA and the national space authorities of its Member, Associate, and Cooperating States. A traditional partner is the International Space Science Institute. It is also supported by Austrospace, the association of Austrian space industries and research institutions. EuroPlanet offers grants for students.
The Summer School is open to students and young professionals in science and engineering fields from ESA Member, Associate and Cooperating States.
Applicants need to be citizens of one of these states to be eligible for financial support by the relevant national sponsoring agencies, universities and EuroPlanet.
For more information, please visit the Alpbach Summer School website.
*ESA Member States:
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom.
Associate states:
Canada and Slovenia
Cooperating States:
Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia
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