Students: apply for the second session of ESEO courses

This initiative will allow students not directly participating in the ESEO project to take benefit from the learning opportunity offered to the ESEO students: training courses in space engineering, including lectures offered by qualified specialists from academia and aerospace organisations. The University of Bologna may grant credits (9 ECTS) to the participating students that pass successfully the course test.

Deadline for applications is 1 December 2013.

ESEO is a microsatellite mission to Low Earth Orbit developed by ESA’s Education Office as an hands-on project for university students. It is currently in the detailed design stage, the so called ‘phase C’ of a space project.

Several European university student teams selected for ESEO are involved in the development and testing of the satellite and its payload. This is being coordinated by ESEO’s prime contractor, ALMASpace, and the University of Bologna, under the supervision of ESA’s Education Office.

The ESEO training courses are held in Bertinoro, Italy (10 km away from Forlì), in 3 independent (but similar in content) sessions. The schedule of the three training sessions is as follows:

• Session A:              2 September 2013 – 14 September 2013
• Session B:              3 February 2014 – 15 February 2014
• Session C:              1 September 2014 – 13 September 2014

This announcement refers to the 3-15 February session only.

The ESA Education Office will not be able to offer a similar sponsorship opportunity for the third session of courses, but ALMASpace is investigating whether they can offer10 extra seats to paying participants.

Outline of sponsorship

The sponsorship provided by ESA Education is awarded to support the participating students for costs associated with the training course, accommodation, meals, and travel.

The sponsorship for selected students will cover:

• the training
• shared room accommodation (normally two students/room) for the full duration of the training
• meals during the training
• course materials
   and
• travel to Bertinoro and back, organised by ALMASpace.

Only the first 100 applications (or otherwise applications submitted before the deadline of 1 December 2013) will be considered.

Eligibility conditions for the applicants

• The applicant must be aged between 18 and 32 when submitting the application;
• at the time of application, the applicant must be enrolled as a student at Master or PhD Level (no Bachelor students will be admitted);
• the applicant must be pursuing a degree in one of the following fields: Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering, or Control and System Engineering. Waivers to this rule, to be approved by ESA and ALMASpace, must be duly justified in writing;
• at the time of application, the applicant must have completed at least 50% of her/his degree. Waivers to this rule, to be approved by ESA and ALMASpace, will only be considered if the applicant can duly justify in writing the reason why she/he believes to have a solid background in the field, allowing her/him to benefit from the training;
• the applicant must be fluent in English;
• the applicant must be a National of an ESA Member State**; however, in line with ESA’s policy  to support Member States with low industrial return, priority will be given to eligible applicants from the following countries:  Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal, and Romania;
• prior experience in international projects will be considered an asset.

How to apply

If you are interested and if, and only if, you are eligible, please submit your CV and a motivational letter stating why you would like to attend the training course, what you hope to learn and why you think you are a good candidate for the scholarship. E-mail both the CV and the letter to eseo @ esa.int not later than 1 December 2013.

Background

ESEO is the third mission within ESA’s Education Satellite Programme and builds upon the experience gained with SSETI Express (launched in 2005) and the YES2 tether and re-entry capsule experiment (launched in 2007). The project is currently in Phase C (the detailed design stage), with students from ten universities across Europe actively involved.

The ESEO spacecraft is planned to be launched into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in 2015–16.