| | ESA at Luxembourg Science Festival
21 October 2005
For the first time ESA is taking part in the Luxembourg Science Festival. The invitation by Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture, Higher Education and Research celebrates Luxembourg’s entry into the European Space Agency in July this year.
The Festival, which is organised within the framework of European Science Week, begins on Saturday 22 October at the Abbaye de Neümunster in Luxembourg and ends on 30 October. It is promoted by the European Commission, the National Natural History Museum and the Ministry of Culture, Higher Education and Research, together with the National Research Fund of Luxembourg.
This annual event provides a showcase for Luxembourg’s science and research activities and aims to stimulate the curiosity and interest of the general public, particularly the young. The addition of ESA’s 180 square metre exhibit, which covers two rooms, will add an extra ‘space’ dimension to this year’s festival and increase interest in Europe’s space programme, of which Luxembourg is an active member.
One of the ESA areas at the Festival will hold an exhibit of the Agency’s current missions while the second will be used to convene presentations and educational workshops by ESA, the European Association for Astronomy Education and the Luxembourg delegation to ESA.
 | | | An ESA exhibit |
The exhibit will illustrate how varied ESA’s space programme is as visitors will be able to see a large, 5.65-metre model of an Ariane 5 launcher; a full scale model of the Huygens probe that landed on Titan; a model of the Galileo constellation that will provide Europe’s own global navigation satellite system; plus a model of Envisat, the largest Earth observation satellite ever built.
Visitors will also be able to discover ESA’s programmes via interactive computer demonstrations on:
- exploration of the solar system
- human spaceflight and exploration
- Earth observation
- satellite navigation and its uses
- launchers
Find out more about ESA’s Education Programme
Young visitors and students will be particularly welcome and will find much to interest them, including a fun space quiz to test their knowledge of space and Europe’s space activities.
Teachers are invited to attend presentations on ESA’s education policy and the educational tools that ESA has designed, together with teachers, for schoolchildren and students of all ages. The first presentation is for primary school teachers and will take place at 14:15 on Thursday 27 October, while the second presentation, designed for secondary school teachers, will take place at 16:00 on the same day.
Teachers wishing to attend either presentation should contact:
Fernand Wagner
Email: fernand.wagner@education.lu
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