The Education Office of the European Space Agency (ESA) offers university students, from ESA Member and Cooperating States, the opportunity to perform investigations in physical sciences, life sciences, and technology, under different gravity conditions through three educational programmes. The "Fly Your Thesis!" (FYT) programme makes use of parabolic flights and the "Drop Your Thesis!" (DYT) programme utilizes a drop tower as microgravity carriers, while the "Spin Your Thesis!" (SYT) programme uses a large centrifuge to create hypergravity. To date, more than hundred university students had the chance to participate in the design, development, and performance of one or more experiments during dedicated campaigns. In the following paper, we examine demographics of past participants of the ESA Education Office gravity-related opportunities over the past seven years and evaluate the benefits of these educational programmes for the participants' studies and careers. Student teams that participated in one of the programmes between 2009 and 2013 were contacted to fill in a questionnaire. The feedback from the students
The European Space Agency's Education Programme, composed of the Primary and Secondary STEM Education Programme for younger students, and the ESA Academy Programme for university students, is strongly committed not only to inspire, but also to actively engage students. The Primary and Secondary STEM Education Programme's aim is to use space as a teaching context to enhance youngsters' literacy, skills and competences as well as to develop the pupils' core values and attitudes in STEM disciplines, and to inspire and to motivate them to pursue studies and careers in the STEM sector. The ESA Academy, the overarching education programme for university students, uses space as the subject, and is designed to equip the next generation of professionals working in the space sector with 21st century skills and competences, with the objective of enhancing their employability, and stimulating their creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurship.The ESA Academy encompasses a portfolio of hands-on 'Space' projects ranging from scientific and technologydemonstration experiments to be run on a number of different professional platforms, to small satellite missions such as CubeSats; complimented by a varied portfolio of training sessions given by space professionals coming from all fields of ESA's expertise, as well as from space industry and academia.Every year hundreds of students participate in ESA Academy's activities, with students participating in launch and experiment campaigns conducted at state of the art facilities located at several centres of excellence around Europe, and amassing an impressive portfolio of space-related and research experience.In order to be eligible to participate in the ESA Academy programmes, students must be nationals of one of the 22 ESA Member States, or Canada or Slovenia. Operating with students coming from across 24 different states and at different levels of their university studies, comes with a unique set of challenges, including, but not limited to, interacting with different national academic approaches, different academic schedules, student engagement levels, gender and inclusiveness, and team funding. The Education Office has risen to these challenges and has developed a comprehensive and inclusive programme framework, which continues to develop as new challenges and new opportunities are identified.The ESA Academy is moving forward with the confidence that the future generations of space professionals in the ESA Member States may benefit from getting the best training and hands-on experience to support the future of the European space sector. The ESA Academy aims to reinforce, and even to further develop, its offering of programmes and training sessions over the coming years.
The Fly a Rocket! programme is a hands-on programme which gives students the chance to learn more about space science and technology, and to launch their very own student rocket from the Andøya Space Center in Northern Norway. The programme was initiated as an ESA Academy program in collaboration with the Norwegian Center for Space Related Education (NAROM) and the Norwegian Space Agency (NSA) as a pilot in 2017 [1]. The aim was to give students in the early years of higher education the possibility to work on a real rocket project and learn about space physics and space engineering and thereby to inspire and motivate the students to consider careers and further study in space and space related disciplines. The pilot cycle was a huge success hence a second cycle was initiated in the fall of 2018, and the rocket launch campaign was in the spring of 2019. This paper will present the ESA and NAROM student rocket program Fly a Rocket! and its objectives together with the experiences and lessons learned from the two cycles of program.
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