What is a small step for universities is a giant leap for students: this is how the meeting named I. ESA Boost Day Debrecen, organized by the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Debrecen, could be put in a nutshell. This was the first ever national meeting of the Hungarian CubeSat teams of university students, with the aim to foster networking between the teams, to support the development of a common technical platform and to encourage the involvement of Hungarian universities in international space research programs.
Apart from the hosting institution, the University of Debrecen, the two-day event was attended by students from the University of Pécs, Széchenyi István University and the University of Óbuda, majoring either in electrical engineering or computer engineering. On the first day of the event, the CubeSat development teams gave a short presentation on their projects and development focus, followed by a presentation by Hunor Örs Detre, Head of Magyar Diákműhold Program [Hungarian Student Satellite Programme], on the achievements of the constellation program so far as well as its future plans. The presentations were followed by an informal technical discussion on the criteria for the selection of the common technical platform, potential scientific experiments and the coordination of the shared milestones for the summer and fall.
The official program of the meeting was opened on Thursday by Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs at the University of Debrecen László Csernoch, who also presented our institution's space research efforts in the framework of the program called UDSpace. During the course of the event, Thilo Kranz, Commercial Space Transportation Programme Manager at European Space Agency (ESA), outlined the objectives, structure and expected funding opportunities of the ESA Boost programme. His presentation provided valuable practical advice and information on deadlines for the Hungarian teams.
Thursday’s event was concluded with a joint discussion, during which Thilo Kranz gave advice to the participating universities on how to prepare their application documents and successfully organize a potential joint mission. It was a fortunate coincidence that the participants in the discussion were also able to follow live the docking of the Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu to the International Space Station.
This meeting was indeed a first step towards a successful inter-university student collaboration to build a cluster of university small satellites, carry out scientific experiments and then launch student satellites into space by using ESA funding and support.
Press Centre - TB
