Students who would like to participate in the Fly Your Thesis! programme must comply with the following criteria at the time of the application:

• be aged between 18 and 32(included) at the time of application;
• a citizen of an ESA Member or Associate state *;
• a full-time master** or PhD candidate in a university of an ESA Member or Associate state * for the period of the experiment development and the time of the campaign;
• studying a scientific or engineering subject.

Conditions for participation

One important condition is that the experiment must be an integral part of at least one students’ thesis. This can be achieved through a master's thesis, a PhD thesis, a research programme or any form of project supported by the applicant’s university.

At the time of the application, the student teams must be able to show ESA's Education Office that they have their university’s support through a letter of endorsement from an endorsing professor or academic supervisor.

Teams must consist of a minimum of four students all of which must fulfil the eligibility criteria. At least four team members should comply with the condition of involvement in the syllabus (see above). The final number of team members that can personally assist and participate in the execution of the experiments (should the team be selected) will depend strictly on the requirements of the experiment itself and is subject to acceptance from the Review Board. 

The initial composition of the team cannot be changed throughout the programme. If, for exceptional reasons, changes are necessary, they will be subject to the approval of the ESA Education Office. 

Experiments on animals and genetically modified organisms will not be accepted.

Proposals identical to those already submitted to ESA’s Parabolic Flight Campaign programme of the Directorate of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration will not be accepted.

A particular experiment proposal can be submitted a maximum of two times to the 'Fly your Thesis!' programme.

If two proposals are of equal quality, priority will be given to teams and/or projects that haven't flown on parabolic flights already or did not yet participate in another ESA Education Office programmes. 

ESA Education reserves the right for final decision on participants allowed to fly on aircraft and since this is an educational programme all experiment operators must be student team members listed as such in the Experiment Reports submitted to ESA Education. No exceptions will be allowed.

Submitted proposals will be evaluated on completion of all the relevant steps.

Please read the how to apply page carefully.

Please note that the conditions detailed above are subject to change without prior notice.