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Past opportunities 2018

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Earth Observation Remote Sensing Workshop 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 10 - 14 December 2018

Description: The goal of this workshop was to introduce students to the various types of Remote Sensing (RS) images and how they can be used and analysed with the help of the tools used in the space industry. The students learned about remote sensing data analysis, radar, optical and thermal infrared image generation and processing. Technical lectures were complemented by exercises and practical sessions, using the example of PROBA-V and other space mission to show how raw data acquired by Earth Observation (EO) satellites are collected, calibrated and distributed to end-users. During the workshop, the students had the opportunity to visit the PROBA Control room, which is located in ESEC.

Schedule:

Day 1	EO Mission Introduction Remote Sensing Basics Exercise: Image opening, visualisation and analysis
Day 2	Radar Remote Sensing Basics Radar Remote Sensing Applications Exercise: Radar RS
Day 3	Optical Remote Sensing Basics Optical Remote Sensing Applications Exercise Optical RS
Day 4	Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing Data processing workflow ESEC-Redu Visit RS Data Fusion
Day 5	RS Data Fusion Exercise RS Data Fusion Applications

Post-Alpbach School Summer School Event 2018

Status: Call for the applications closed; only opened to students who participated in the Alpbach Summer School 2018. Event delivered.

Date: 26 - 30 November 2018

Description: Students got the opportunity to carry on working on the Calathus mission proposed by team Blue during the Alpbach Summer School 2018. Calathus is a mission designed to travel to the Occator Crater to perform mass spectroscopy and take high resolution images of the surface, but most importantly it will bring samples of the salty surface material back to Earth. The spacecraft consists of an orbiter to map the crater, a lander equipped with a drill, a mass spectrometer, a thermal mapper and a second camera to be left on the surface as the collected sample rejoins the orbiter to return to Earth for analysis. 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:

Day 1	Guidelines for the event Mission presentation Preparation for CDF session First CDF session
Day 2	Mission redefinition Second CDF session
Day 3	Third CDF sessions Conclusion of CDF sessions Preparation of oral presentation and article
Day 4	Delivery of preliminary oral presentation and article Finalisation of oral presentation and article
Day 5	Final oral presentation Visit to ESEC-Redu

Technology Transfer and Innovation Workshop 2018

Status: Call for the applications closed. Training course was delivered.

Date: 13 - 16 November 2018

Description: During this pilot workshop, the students were introduced to the different disciplines related to Technology Transfer and Innovation (TT&I). Students learned about various domains such as patenting, technology transfer, and entrepreneurships. These lectures were complemented by a case study based on an actual ESA patent. The students had to implement their newly gained knowledge to help ESA to find a suitable application, working on a simplified business plan proposal. The workshop was addressed to university students curious about the TT&I field, who would be interested in working in this field, or who perhaps are developing an innovative concept and want to know how to turn it into a business or start-up in the space sector.

Schedule:

Day 1	Introduction to TT&I Introduction to Patenting GA1: From Fiction to Reality
Day 2	Technology Transfer Programmes Practical case examples ESEC-Redu Visit GA2: From Patent to Applications
Day 3	Entrepreneurship and Business Incubation New Ventures and Business Model Canvas Start-up, from idea to business GA3: From Application to Business
Day 4	GA4: Technology Transfer Workshop Final Presentations

Watch the workshop video.

Space Systems Engineering Training Course 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 6 – 9 November 2018

Description: During this four-day training course, students were given a 'crash-course' in systems engineering and its applications within the space industry, in particular within ESA. The course provided an overview of the scope and context of systems engineering in general, before outlining the roles of a system engineer. The course further explored some key system engineering roles, such as requirements capture, architecture definition and verification and validation. The full space system life cycle was explored from a system engineering viewpoint. The course was delivered by current and former ESA experts with a wealth of experience in Earth-Observation projects, in the form of interactive lectures and group exercises. By the end of the course, students had an understanding of what systems engineering is, and what a systems engineer does throughout a space project lifecycle, as well as some of the key challenges they face!

Schedule:

Day 1:	Scope and context of Systems Engineering What is Systems Engineering? How to represent a System The Space Programmatic Environment Tasks of a Systems Engineer
Day 2:	Systems Engineering Process System Requirements How to define the architecture of a system, including trade-offs and specification Design of a space mission
Day 3:	Development and Verification Approach Systems Engineering and Project Management
Day 4:	Application of a real space project Process Management, Operations, and End of Missions

Concurrent Engineering Challenge 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Challenge delivered.

Date: 22 – 26 October 2018

Description:

The ESA Academy Concurrent Engineering Challenge featured groups of 20 to 35 students, each one supervised by two system engineers in the four Concurrent Engineering Facilities (CEFs) in the Lulea University of Technology (Sweden), the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), Universidad Politécnica de 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 to four to cover the following disciplines: structures, configuration, power, mechanisms, thermal, attitude and orbit control system for a satellite (AOCS), propulsion, 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 Facility.

Schedule:

Day 1	Introduction Concurrent Engineering Approach Get familiar with Workbooks and OCDT Visit of ESA Redu Centre
Day 2	Each group presentation general presentation Introduction to the mission Mission overview and requirements System requirements Mission and system modes definition Each group results presentation
Day 3	First iteration of all subsystems First budgets Each group first results presentation
Day 4	Finalisation of the concept Product tree Budgets Each group second iteration presentation
Day 5	Final design consolidation & any open issues Each group final presentation

Earth Observation Satellite System Design Training Course 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 1 - 5 October 2018

Description: : The aim of this training course was to provide university students with insights on the entire development of an Earth Observation satellite, from the definition of the initial requirements to the final in-orbit verifications, including risks assessment and ground operations, and with an emphasis on the sizing of the Earth Observation instruments. Taught by current and former ESA experts and external experts, this course was delivered through formal lectures, which were complemented by a group project, where the students designed a simple Earth Observation satellite, and illustrated by interesting videos in the evenings.

Schedule:

Day 1	Introduction to EO Satellite Systems Requirements Orbit Selection
Day 2	Risk Management Microwave Instrumentation
Day 3	Optical Instrumentation Group Project
Day 4	Satellite Design Ground Segments and Operations On-ground and In-orbit Verifications Group Project
Day 5	Group Project Presentation

Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Operations Training Course 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 11 - 14 September 2018

Description: 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. Students learned about:

the challenges of operating a spacecraft (as opposed to designing a spacecraft)
the operator’s view on all the spacecraft subsystems and the design features to implement in order to operate them
‘physiological’ traps to be avoided during operations and testing

Schedule:

Day 1 & 2	Introduction - the difference between design and operations engineers Mission design and payloads Attitude Dynamic and Control Subsystems Orbit Control System PowerGroup Exercise
Day 3 & 4	Power (Storage)Thermal Telemetry-Tracking and Control Subsystems Command and ControlOn-board processors On-board software and Fault Detection, Isolation and Recovery Group Exercise and Summary

ESEO & FYS - Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Communications Training Course

Status: Training course delivered.

Date: 3 – 6 July 2018

Description: An extraordinary edition of the Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Communications was organised for the students involved in the European Student Earth Orbiter ESEO, which is an ESA Educational project. 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.

University students learned about:

the challenges of communicating with a spacecraft
the way communications systems are designed and how it can have a crucial impact on how they are used and what problems can occur
physiological traps to be avoided when communicating with a spacecraft

Schedule:

Day 1	Introduction The Challenge Modulation Group Exercise
Day 2	Demodulation Coding Decoding Visit of an antenna and baseband equipment Group Exercise
Day 3	Protocols Visit of the PROBA operation room Radio Frequency transmissions/reception Link Budgets Group Exercise
Day 4	Real Ground Stations Summary of the Group Exercise

ESA-ELGRA Gravity-Related Research Summer School 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Summer school delivered.

Date: 25 - 29 June 2018

Description: During these four and a half days’ summer school, students were 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 appreciated the benefits of performing research at different g levels. Moreover, the students worked 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:

Day 1	Introduction to ESA, ESA programmes and opportunities Introduction to ELGRA and SELGRA Introduction to gravity-related research ESA Education Office and hands-on programmes Develop a gravity-related experiment Introduction to team project
Day 2	Life science research part 1 Physiology research part Physical science research part Project Management workshop Former students projects Team project
Day 3	Life science research part 2 Physiology research part 2 Physical science research part 2 Team project
Day 4	Life science research part 3 Physiology research part 3 Physical science research part 3 Space project life cycle Team project
Day 5	Team project presentations

Standardisation Training Course 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 12 - 15 June 2018

Description: During this four-day training course, university students were given an introduction to ECSS system and will be taught the importance of using standards. They were also provided with an overview of how/why standards are used in different disciplines at ESA. Throughout face-to-face lectures from several ESA experts, students appreciated the importance of ECSS system, which will be an important part of their space-related career, complementing what they normally learn at university.

Preliminary schedule:

Day 1	Introduction to ECSS System Management System Engineering
Day 2	PA&QA Thermal Engineering Control Engineering
Day 3	Telecommunications Electrical and Electronics Mechanisms
Day 4	SoftwareStructures Ground System and Operations

Product Assurance Awareness Training Course 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 29 May - 1 June 2018

Description: During this four-days training course, students were 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. Throughout face-to-face lectures from several ESA’s PA managers and PA discipline experts, students understood that PA is an integral part of the engineering activities playing a role in the development, design, test philosophy, build and operation of the system.

Preliminary schedule:

Day 1	Overall Context of Space Projects
Day 2	PA Disciplines: Quality Management & Assurance PA Disciplines: Dependability & Safety
Day 3	PA Disciplines: Software Product Assurance PA Disciplines: Electrical, Electronic and Electro-mechanical components
Day 4	PA Disciplines: Materials & Processes PA in Space Business

ESEO - Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Operations Training Course

Status: Training course delivered.

Date: 15 – 18 May 2018

Description: An extraordinary edition of the Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Operations was organised for the students involved in the European Student Earth Orbiter ESEO, which is an ESA Educational project. 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.

Students learned about:

the challenges of operating a spacecraft (as opposed to designing a spacecraft)
the operator’s view on all the spacecraft subsystems and the design features to implement in order to operate them
‘physiological’ traps to be avoided during operations and testing

Schedule:

Day 1 & 2	Introduction - the difference between design and operations engineers Mission design and payloads Attitude Dynamic and Control Subsystems Orbit Control System Power Thermal
Day 3 & 4	Telemetry-Tracking and Control Subsystems Command and Control On-board processors On-board software and Fault Detection, Isolation and Recovery Group Exercise and Summary

Concurrent Engineering Workshop – May 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Workshop delivered.

Date: 1 - 4 May 2018

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, university students learned 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 learned to use the Open Concurrent Design Tool (OCDT) and identify 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.

Schedule:

Day 1	CubeSat architectures ESA TEC CubeSats Mission analysis an design Introduction to Concurrent Engineering Get familiar with Workbooks and OCDT
Day 2	Introduction to the Mission Mission and System Modes Definition Introduction to Fly Your Satellite! Programme First iteration of all Subsystems First Budgets Presentations of the first results
Day 3	Second iteration of all Subsystems Product tree Budgets Presentation of the second iteration
Day 4	Final Design Consolidation & any Open Issues How to increase CubeSat reliability? Preparing the Final Presentation Final Presentations

Space Debris Training Course 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 16 - 20 April 2018

Description: During this five-day training course, the university students were provided with an introduction to the concept of space debris, why it is necessary to address this problematic and how the mitigation policies set by ESA apply to missions. The students not only learned about the space debris environment and mitigation technologies, but also about how it affects spacecraft’s operations and the issues and solutions foreseen in the future. Taught by ESA experts, mainly from the ESA Space Debris Office, as well as external experts from the sector, the course was delivered through formal technical lectures, which were complemented with hands-on exercises based on a real-life case study.

Schedule:

Day 1	The Environment.	Introduction Space Debris Environment Legal Environment Mitigations Principles and Guidelines
Day 2	Mitigation	Forces acting on a space object Assessment methods Mitigation Technology
Day 3	Operations	Space Surveillance Collision Avoidance Operations in the Space Debris Environment Protection and Shielding
Day 4	Re-entry	Aerothermodynamics Atmospheric Break-up On-ground Risks
Day 5	The Future	The Future of the Environment Active Removal

Human Space Physiology Training Course 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 20 - 23 March 2018

Description: Throughout face-to-face and videoconference lectures, two groups of university students tooke 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 wereintroduced 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 were also involved in a group project in order to increase their knowledge about a key physiological issue in Human Spaceflight.

The students were introduced to the following topics:

What it’s really like to live in space
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
Human Space Physiology research is performed both in space and on Earth
How the senses perceive being ‘weightless’ in an orbiting space vehicle
How key physiological systems respond to microgravity, what mechanisms underlie these changes, and some approaches that may be used to mitigate such effects
Major issues and challenges facing current human spaceflight and future space exploration

Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Communications Training Course 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training course delivered.

Date: 6 - 9 March 2018

the challenges of communicating with a spacecraft
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

Schedule:

Day 1	Introduction The Challenge Modulation Group Exercise
Day 2	Demodulation Coding Decoding Visit of an antenna and baseband equipment Group Exercise
Day 3	Protocols Visit of the PROBA operation room Radio Frequency transmissions/reception Link Budgets Group Exercise
Day 4	Real Ground Stations Summary of the Group Exercise

CubeSats Hands-on Training Week 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Training week delivered.

Date: 26 February - 2 March 2018

Description: During this pilot 5-day training week, the university students learnt about small satellite design and testing through hands-on exercises on a CubeSat training model, the ESAT. These lab sessions were supervised by Theia Space and were complemented by technical lectures, delivered by ESA experts. The aim of this Training Week was to allow university students, who are involved in a CubeSat mission or would like to develop one, to get acquainted to the hardware and software of a CubeSat and to the assembly, integration and verifications of a small satellite as well as all the testing required.

Schedule:

Day 1	Space Systems Engineering Introduction to the ESAT model Software
Day 2	On Board Data Handling
Day 3	Electrical Power System Communications
Day 4	Attitude and Orbit Control System Assembly, Integration and Verification
Day 5	Satellite Operations Satellite Testing

Concurrent Engineering Workshop – February 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Workshop delivered.

Date: 20–23 February 2018

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, university 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 identify 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.

Schedule:

Day 1	Introduction to the Mission and Concurrent Engineering Get familiar with Workbooks and OCDT Mission overview and Trade-Off Mission and System Modes Definition
Day 2	First iteration of all Subsystems. Modify Workbooks First Budgets Presentations of the first results
Day 3	Finalisation of the Concept Product tree Budgets Presentation of the second iteration
Day 4	Final Design Consolidation & any Open Issues Preparing the Final Presentation Final Presentations

CubeSats Concurrent Engineering Workshop 2018

Status: Call for applications closed. Workshop delivered.

Date: 16–19 January 2018

Description: Students were introduced to the concurrent design of a CubeSat mission. Guided by ESA experts, the students learnt to use the Open Concurrent Design Tool and identify design drivers. Divided into teams, they first created a subsystem concept to later achieve an already identified mission concept, function tree and product tree, using concurrent engineering. The workshop helped to better prepare those universities that are planning to embark on a CubeSat project or are at the early stages of one. Teams wishing to participate do not need to be at an advanced stage in their CubeSat project. They can be at a conceptual and/or preliminary phase of their CubeSat design.

Schedule:

Day 1	Introduction to the Mission and Concurrent Engineering Get familiar with Workbooks and OCDT Mission overview and Trade-Off Mission and System Modes Definition
Day 2	First iteration of all Subsystems. Modify Workbooks First Budgets Presentations of the first results
Day 3	Finalisation of the Concept Product tree Budgets Presentation of the second iteration
Day 4	Final Design Consolidation & any Open Issues Preparing the Final Presentation Final Presentations

Gravity-Related Experiments Training Week 2018

Status: Training week delivered.

Date: 30 January – 2 February 2018

Description: The aim of this training week was to better prepare selected university 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:

Day 1	Introduction to ESA, ESA Education programme and opportunities Student teams presentations System Engineering Physical Science at different g levels Visit of the Euro Space Centre
Day 2	Project and Risk Management Former student projects SELGRA Presentation of the facilities Meet your experts (session 1)
Day 3	Meet your experts (session 2) Visit of ESEC Life sciences at different g levels Human physiology at different g levels
Day 4	Experiment Automation Communication Former students outreach Inspirational Lecture