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FYS Design Booster proposal instructions

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ESA / Education / CubeSats - Fly Your Satellite!

ESA invites university student teams from an eligible state that are designing a one, two, three or six-unit CubeSat with primarily educational objectives to propose their satellite for the pilot edition of ‘Fly Your Satellite! Design Booster’.

The pilot programme follows a fixed schedule spanning 1.5 years. Information on its timeline, activities, and milestones is captured in the FYS Design Booster phases page.

The programme timeline is the following:

Activity Deadline
Information Session
For potential applicants. Register here.
Deadline for proposal submission
Deliverables: CubeSat Proposal + University Endorsement Letter		 October 2, 2022, 23:59 CEST
Shortlisting of teams
Shortlisted teams are invited to the Training Week		 Shortlisted teams will be informed by mail before October 7, 2022
Training Week
ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands		 November 7-11, 2022
Updated proposal submission November 23, 2022, 23:59 CET
Selection Workshop
Online CubeSat team presentations		 December 6-7, 2022
Selected teams announced within approximately 2 weeks after the Selection Workshop
Baseline Design Review January-March 2023
Design consolidation and subsystem testing April 2023-Feb 2024
Final Design Review March-April 2024

How to Apply

Interested in applying to FYS Design Booster? You should then do the following:

  • Ensure your team is eligible and meets the conditions to apply (see section below)
  • Upload the following documents to the online registration form in PDF format no later than the deadline indicated in the Call for Proposals:
    1. CubeSat Proposal
      The CubeSat Proposal template can be downloaded here.
      Carefully read the guidelines described within the document.
      PDF file name: “FYS-Design-Booster_Proposal_<Name of the CubeSat>”
    2. Endorsement letter
      The letter of endorsement from the professor responsible for the CubeSat project
      PDF file name: “FYS-Design-Booster_Proposal_<Name of the CubeSat>_endorsement-letter”

Proposals that do not comply with the requirements provided in the conditions to apply (section below) may be rejected without being reviewed further. The information provided in the proposals will be treated as confidential and will only be distributed to and reviewed by the ESA Panel for the purpose of the evaluation. The contact person indicated in the proposal may be contacted by ESA for further clarifications during the proposal evaluation period.

Any questions regarding applications can be directed to cubesats @ esa.int

Conditions to Apply

1. Scope of the Candidate CubeSat
The pilot edition of the Fly Your Satellite! Design Booster is open to university student teams from an eligible state, working on a one-, two-, three- or six- unit CubeSat at a preliminary or detailed design stage.

The scope of the proposed CubeSat mission shall be educational, and the proposal shall clarify in which way the educational objectives will be pursued.

The proposal shall also highlight the mission objectives of the CubeSat (for instance technological experiments, scientific research or other).

Teams should state clearly in their proposal how their experiment and project objectives align with the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the ESA Strategic Goals. Teams are encouraged to choose the goals that align closest to their project and describe in detail how their project aligns with that specific goal.

Student team members are encouraged to prepare theses on subjects (e.g., technological, engineering, scientific…) related to their CubeSat mission. This shall be reflected in the proposal, and ESA will consider this as an educational asset.

2. Team Composition
The opportunity is open to teams from universities of an eligible state. The applicants shall be a university team that includes: 

A core team of minimum 6 students complying with the eligibility criteria. It is recommended to try to include people from different disciplines and ensure that the team has a good range of skills addressing the many different tasks involved.

  • The core student team (as specified above) and all students receiving sponsorship or training from the ESA Education Office must comply with the following eligibility criteria:
    • Aged minimum 18 years old;
    • Be a citizen of an eligible state;
    • Enrolled as a full-time bachelor, master or PhD student (or equivalent) at a university of an eligible state
  • The number of student team members may be extended during the project lifetime. There is no limit to the maximum number of student team members.
  • CubeSat teams may include a limited number of students that do not comply with the eligibility criteria above, but those students will not be supported by ESA for participation in programme events, nor for training.
  • Involving students at higher level of education, e.g. master or PhD level, is recommended.

In addition, a minimum of 2 supervisors shall cover these three functions:

  • An endorsing professor, responsible for the CubeSat project, endorsing the CubeSat proposal on behalf of the university;
  • A team leader (the professor, master/ PhD student, or an assistant of the university) coordinating the project at system level and ensuring the milestones and deadlines of the FYS Design Booster are met;
  • A system engineer (the team leader, or a master/ PhD student from the same university as the team leader);
  • The key roles of team leader and system engineer must be undertaken by citizens of an eligible state.

Those conditions on the team composition will continue to apply throughout the entire opportunity. ESA may ask the university teams to provide evidence of their compliance to the eligibility criteria at any time.

Teams should clarify whether a turnover of students is expected during the course of the FYS Design Booster, how the handover will be organised and how continuity will be ensured.

3. Project Funding
The teams participating in the FYS Design Booster Pilot shall rely on their own sponsors.

4. ESA Sponsorship
Students who may directly benefit from the different forms of sponsorship that the ESA Education Office will offer must comply with the eligibility criteria. Students that do not meet the eligibility criteria cannot be sponsored by the ESA Education Office.

ESA contribution in the support of the participating CubeSat student teams will include the following:

  • Support offered by the ESA Education personnel that run the programme, and by the ESA specialists who will lecture, follow up, and review the student activities; 
  • Access to and use of test facilities;
  • Student sponsorship for travel and accommodation for the participation in workshops,  training courses, and reviews of the FYS Design Booster Pilot.

5. Legal
ESA does not take ownership of the satellites. The CubeSat teams or their universities will remain the owners of the satellites, and will hold all the responsibilities related to ownership.

6. CubeSat Requirements
Within the proposal, student teams must report compliance to the CubeSat Design Specification rev 13 (for 1U, 2U and 3U CubeSats) or to the 6.0 CubeSat Design Specification rev 1.0 (for 6U CubeSats), which will be used as the basis for selection.

During the course of the opportunity, teams will have access to the Fly Your Satellite! Design Specification version 4, which provides additional technical and programmatic requirements for participating teams.

Note: teams considering a future application to Fly Your Satellite! should bear in mind that only one-, two- or three- unit CubeSat compliant to the FYS Design Specification are eligible.

7. Endorsement Letter on behalf of the University
The endorsing professor shall write a formal letter of endorsement, including signature, in which he/she should clearly state that he/she supports the FYS Design Booster proposal and that he/she accepts responsibility for the CubeSat project.

Only one proposal per university faculty or department can be considered for the proposal to Fly Your Satellite! Design Booster. The faculty or department will be asked to withdraw the other proposals in case of multiple applications.

If the proposed project is a joint undertaking of multiple parties (e.g. two universities collaborating on one mission), one single university shall act as the leading university and the key point of contact vis-à-vis ESA. The collaborations with other organisations or institutions shall be clarified in the proposal, including a description of the mutual agreements.

8. Ranking and selection
All proposals will be reviewed and decisions regarding rankings and selections of CubeSat teams will be taken by a dedicated Panel composed of ESA experts. The selection criteria will include, amongst others:

  • the educational content;
  • the mission objectives;
  • the feasibility of the proposed CubeSat project;
  • the team and project organisation.

If two proposals are of equal quality, priority will be given to teams and/or projects that have not been launched by the Education Office or did not yet participate in Fly Your Satellite! or other ESA Education Office programmes.

9. ESA Academy Code of Conduct
Everyone who participates in the FYS Design Booster opportunity is a participant in the ESA Academy programme. Therefore, all participants are subject to the ESA Academy Code of Conduct.

10. Personal Data Protection
As part of their participation in the opportunity, CubeSat teams must provide ESA with certain personal data. Which data is collected, the purposes it is used for, to whom it may be disclosed, and how long it’s kept for are all covered in the ESA Academy Privacy Notice and consent form, which should always be available on the ESA Academy webpages, and agreement with which must be made before submitting personal data to ESA.