ESA Director General gets hands-on with Young Professionals Ariane 6 Payload

The ESA Director General, Josef Aschbacher, spoke with several members of the Young Professional Satellite (YPSat) team, responsible for developing a payload to record the inaugural flight of Ariane 6 from inside the launcher. The YPSat initiative is a project run entirely by ESA Young Professionals from across all ESA sites and directorates and represents an opportunity for them to experience designing, building and testing a payload for use in space with the support of experts within the agency. 

Director General Joseph Aschbacher talked with more than 35 young professionals involved in the project, receiving insights into the development process from various team leaders responsible for each of the major subsystems of the YPSat, such as the onboard computing and data handling subsystem lead, the thermal subsystem lead and the wake-up system (WUS) lead, the subsystem responsible for activating all other systems on-board the YPSat and triggering the imaging of the fairing separation of Ariane 6, and hearing first-hand about the their efforts and their drive. As a voluntary project, much of the work takes place in the YPSat team member's free time alongside their primary roles within ESA. 

ESA Director General also got hands-on with the flight model itself and accepted the challenge of attaching one of the fastening bolts within the main structure of the YPSat while in the clean room assembly environment. Overall, he was highly impressed with the initiative, the passion and the team spirit showcased within the YPSat project and expressed his interest in all upcoming developments and milestones. 

The YPSat team would like to thank the ESA Director General and the ESA management team for their continuous support and interest in the project as well as wish a good farewell to all YPSat team members that will be leaving the project and ESA in the coming months.