An experiment designed and built by a student could fly on the International Space Station thanks to the work of the European Space Agency¹s Education Office.
The office is committed to encouraging the youth of Europe to actively prepare for and participate in the space programme. ESA provides many avenues for any student interested in space. One of these is the Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative which creates a network of students, educational institutions and organisations to design, construct and launch microsatellites and even potentially a small moon-lander. In 1999, ESA introduced a programme to sponsor the transportation and accommodation of 470 European students to attend the annual International Astronautical Federation (IAF) congress. This was so successful that further visits to the IAF are being made. "Places are still available for this years' congress in Toulouse," says Monica Miguel Lago, of ESA's Education Office. The real highlight for students, however, are parabolic flight campaigns which give 120 individuals each year a chance to experience weightlessness in a converted Airbus, flying several parabolas, each creating microgravity. Thirty student microgravity experiments are selected for each campaign from various scientific disciplines.
If any experiment is regarded as successful or of merit, it is possible that it might be selected to fly with a suite of ESA experiments on a Russian Foton microgravity orbital flight which lasts about 16 days. The spherical part of the spacecraft, containing the experiments, is recovered after re-entry. The first opportunity will be a Foton mission in 2002 when a 7kg (15lb) autonomous experiment dedicated to students will be flown.
In May 2000, ESA signed an agreement to allocate 1% of its resources on the ISS to student experiments which would fly after the launch of the Columbus laboratory in 2005. About 13kg of experiment space on Columbus has been allocated to the student experiments.
"The opportunity is open to all students in Europe," says Lago.
Source: Flight Daily News
