Highlights from the Ecsite Space Group Digital Events June 2021

The Space Group organised a three-day digital event in June to create the opportunity for reconnecting, interacting and sharing their experiences and projects and being updated on ESA’s latest achievements and future European space activity.

 

Day1

18 June, 14:30-16:00

The first day was a ‘Virtual coffee and chat’ drop-in session that gave the opportunity to all participants to virtually meet, reconnect and to welcome new members.
Catherine Franche, Executive Director of Ecsite, welcomed the group and announced that the Ecsite Space Group will search for its fourth co-chair during the second part of 2021.
Soon after all three co-chairs, Maria Menéndez, Head of the Outreach Coordination Office at ESA, Ana Noronha, Executive Director of Ciência Viva, and Aude Lesty from Cité de l’espace, replacing Christophe Chaffardon, Head of Education, introduced themselves and welcomed participants.

Aleksandra Kolwaska from Ecsite started the session proposing the Space Quiz composed by five questions: participants had to recognise on satellite images of our planet major events and places that have been affected by the environmental changes.
Soon after participants had the opportunity to join small groups in breakout rooms and share their experiences on how science centres and space-related organisations proposed their activities during the pandemic in 2021.

The meeting was followed by a poll of ‘Would you like to keep some of the Space Group events in the digital form?’, which received 71% of positive answers from participants. They referred to the opportunity to meet each other, despite the challenging time that had affected all, with the advantage in reduce costs and improve time efficiency.

Day2

22 June, 14:00-16:00

The second day, the ‘ESA: latest achievements and coming milestones’ was a session to the presentation of ESA’s achievements, its programme in 2021 and for the upcoming years and also materials and resources that can be used by museums and sciences centres in support to their activities.
The session was introduced by Maria Menéndez, Head of Outreach Coordination Office, and facilitated by Barbara Budassi, coordinator of the Ecsite Space Group for ESA. Aleksandra, from Ecsite, supported the session gathering questions from participants.

1. Next launches and main ESA milestones for 2021-22

Kai Noeske, Communication Programme Officer for ESA’s Science Directorate gave an overview and an update about the ESA milestones for 2021-22 including the #SpaceCare campaign with its opportunity for the environment, society and economy; the launchers of Vega family, Ariane 6, Juice to explore Jupiter’s moons, Euclid to explore dark matter in the Universe, and the launch of the James Webb Space telescope from Kourou later in 2021.
Kai presented also the three ESA missions: the ongoing Alpha mission with the astronaut Thomas Pesquet, which will be followed by astronaut Matthias Maurer in Autumn 2021 and Samantha Cristoforetti in 2022. He concluded his presentation by describing the ESA astronaut recruitment campaign and its follow-up.

2. James Webb Space (JWST) launch campaign and outreach support material

Kai Noeske also presented more in detail the launch of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a joint NASA/ESA/CSA telescope that will allow the extension of discoveries of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space telescope. He encouraged participants to organise events in order to promote and disseminate James Webb and its future activity, with the support of ESA digital materials that can be found on the following link: www.esa.int/webb

3. Moon narrative and Artemis

Rosita Suenson, Communication Programme Officer for Human and Robotic Exploration at ESA, presented the #ForwadToTheMoon programme and the launch of ExoMars, the first European rover on Mars, foreseen in September 2022.

 

4. From ESA Exhibition webpage for museums

Soon after, Barbara Budassi, Communication Coordinator at ESA, presented resources and materials for science centres and museums, available both in digital and printable version on the ESA website. Participants well appreciated both the ESA production and the presentation how to find and use the ready-to-use digital materials.

5. ESA-digital resources-images and videos

The presentation of ESA resources continued with Paola Casini, Graphics and Images Coordinator for ESA, and Hugo Auffret, Video Distribution at ESA. They explained the four main categories of resources addressed to different users: ESA science articles for scientific communities, YouTube and social media for the general public, ESA Education for teachers and schools, ESA TV and ESA Professional Photo Library, for professionals. They pointed the attention also on the format, the availability, terms of uses and special permissions for using the ESA material.

6. ESA e-shop

Mai-liis Soerd, Merchandising & Licensing Support at ESA, presented the three format of ESA shop, ESA Space Shop, Vintage ESA and Real Space images and the new collections related to the latest ESA activities, including the Alpha mission. For more information, visit www.esaspaceshop.com

Participants well appreciated all ESA’s speakers, their presentations and resources.
The session was concluded by Christophe Chaffardon, co-chair of the Space Group, who announced that the Space Group Annual Meeting 2021 is planned to be organised at the Cité de l’espace in Toulouse in December.

Day3

23 June, 14:00-16:00

During the projects showcase session ‘Share, inspire, connect’, participants could share their projects, exchange their experiences, be inspired by each other and foster cooperation between museums in Europe with European space activity.

Barbara Budassi, Ecsite Space Group coordinator for ESA and Aleksandra Kowalska welcomed participants and started the session. Five space-related projects were presented in plenary with a 12-minute pitch each, and soon after the group had the opportunity to discuss more in detail, in small group of 4-5 participants in virtual breaking rooms.

The projects

1. Clara Cruz Niggebrugge, ESA Education updates

Clara from ESA Education Office presented the vision for ‘space school education’ based on three principles: respecting the curricular needs, being inclusive and helping the curricula to evolve. She mentioned the importance of online delivery and e-learning offer including teachers’ training, educational projects like ESA Kids app, Teach with Jupiter mini website, Paxi videos, Climate Detectives, and the inflight call with the astronaut Thomas Pesquet. She reminded the group also of the three-day ESA teacher conference organised online for 6-8 July 2021.

2. Aude Letsy/Englantine Lelong, Cité de l’espace, new exhibition: Suive Mission Alpha

Aude presented the new exhibition produced by Cité de l’espace in collaboration with ESA and dedicated to the Alpha Mission and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
The exhibition is interactive, full of immersive videos and touchscreens about the mission itself and about the Alpha team who made it possible.

3. Jorge Rivero Gonzalez, Leiden University, Big Ideas for Space Exploration: Contributions to STEM education

Jorge presented the frameworks and methodologies and projects in Space Education developed by the Leiden University’s Astronomy & Society group. Between the projects he mentioned Universe Awareness, spaceEU, Big Ideas of Astronomy and Travelling to a Black Hole.

4. Naama Charit Yaari, Weizmann Institute of Science, UltraSat: Gateway to Space

Naama presented UltraSat, a scientific mini-satellite carrying a telescope with an large field of view, and she explained the its related scientific mission and the role of the Davidson Institute of Science Education in Israel.

5. Ana Noronha, Ciência Viva, new exhibition: Water seen from space

Ana presented the ‘Water: unfiltered’ exhibition, which not only gives voice to the right of clean water but explore opportunity for science, technology, knowledge and imagination can tackle water-related challenge and support for solutions. Ana focused the attention on how satellites and the space activity are important tools in supporting water resources and its management.

After the plenary, the group continued to work in small groups and address questions and impressions to presenters.

The last part of the session was dedicated to the next appointments for the group, including the bimonthly Space Group Newsletter presented by Audrey Korczynska, Ecsite Space Group Newsletter coordinator.

The co-chairs thanked both participants and speakers for their presence and reminded them both the call for the new co-chair and the Space Group Annual Meeting foreseen in Toulouse in December 2021.

About the Space Group

The Space Group, with more than 190 members and the support of ESA, aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas and projects to promote European achievements in space to the general public.

The group benefits from the established European networks of ECSITE and the European Space networks of ESA and its Member States.
The Space Group is led by three co-chairs, Maria Menéndez, Head of the Outreach Coordination Office at ESA; Christophe Chaffardon, Head of Education at Cité de l’espace, Toulouse, France; Ana Noronha, Executive Director of Ciência Viva, Lisbon, Portugal.

For more information on the ECSITE Space Group, please click here.

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