Page: 1 of 5 Universities Competition for Space - UCS As part of its ongoing effort to promote space activities and space science within Swiss Universities, the Swiss Space Center proposes a UCS - a Universities Competition for Space. Students from Universities of Applied Sciences, Universities and ETHZ/EPFL are invited to present an interesting design payload for a Sounding Rocket. Bachelor and Masters students are welcome to participate and organize project teams; collaborations between different schools and students that could share competences and expertise are particularly appreciated. The proposed payload (one sensor or a set of several sensors) shall fit the requirements described at Paragraph 3 in order to be hosted in the sounding rocket. The prize of the competition is the participation for two students in the CaNoRock program, the European Student Sounding Rocket exchange program. In this one-week workshop students from all over Europe and Canada come together in Norway and are taught by experts about the science and technology of (sounding) rockets. The highlight is the launch of a sounding rocket prepared during the course. The goal of this competition is to promote new ideas for space, to motivate students and foster education in space activities, as well as giving the opportunity to the academic entities to network and compete, improving their skills and knowledge. 1. How to participate? Each team interested in the participation shall announce its project by filling the online form. In order to participate a reference is necessary: a professor (or a senior scientist) shall be indicated as reference. This expert guiding the students must not personally work on the project but may give his academic support.
Page: 2 of 5 In the online registration, the team shall provide the final report for the competition as an electronic document in English (in PDF format) by 20 May 2016 at 23:00: A detailed Technical Notes document (maximum 5 pages) describing: Scope of the Payload: Science, Technology demonstration, etc. Design Operational Mode during the flight (how it works on flight) Expected results (or what you want to measure) This document will be evaluated for the competition. The Engineers of the Swiss Space Center will evaluate the projects received, electing the best proposal as winner of the competition. 2. Who may participate? Bachelor and Master students from Swiss Academic Institutions such as Universities of Applied Sciences, Universities or ETHZ/EPFL are welcome and students from different faculties are invited to participate. A background in engineering is not mandatory to propose an interesting instrument or technology, however the payload shall fulfil the requirements described in Paragraph 3. In order to help the students in the proposition an example of proposal is presented in the Annexes. For the competition: teams of 2 students will be considered. Teams with students from different faculties/schools/institutes are particularly welcome. 3. Technical Requirements for the Payload: The proposed payload must fit the requirements listed in the attached document. 4. Prize: The best project will be officially announced by the Swiss Space Center before the end of May 2016. The winning team will be directly contacted and two students of the team will have the opportunity to participate in the exchange program called CaNoRock with other international students in the Andøya Space Center in the north of Norway. The prize covers the funding for the development of the proposed project during the summer and the travel costs (flight + accommodation) for two people in Norway. During the workshop the students will build and launch a sounding rocket, monitoring instruments and telemetry. CaNoRock program will include lectures in physics, engineering and electronics as well as hands on instrument development, payload building and sounding rocket launches. For more information please visit: http://andoyaspace.no/?page_id=246
Page: 3 of 5 5. Who will win? - Criteria of Evaluation The Swiss Space Center team will evaluate all the projects based on the following criteria: Relevance of the Payload/Sensors (Interesting or not?) Quality of the design and feasibility of the project Novelty of the concept proposed 6. Schedule of the Competition: 1 st December 2015: Publication and official opening of the UCS 20 May 2016: Deadline to submit the Project End May 2016: Decision of the winners 1 st June 1 st September: Development of the project 3 10 October*: CaNoRock Week *The date will be confirmed (on the SSC website) 7. More information The winners of the UCS 2015 mounted their humidity sensor, collecting thousands of data during the flight and analysing it after the week in Norway. The pictures below were taken during the seven days of workshop at Andøya Space Center.
Page: 4 of 5 Figure 1: Guillaume taking care of soldering the Humidity Sensor Figure 2: Sebastien mounting the payload in the rocket fairing Figure 3: Results of the 98sec flight over the Norway sea
Page: 5 of 5 Figure 4: The Payload and other instruments for the telemetry Figure 5: the Students working together on the 2015 EuRock for the week at Andøya Space Here the video of our students participating in the project in 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1qbfbmzzvo