Apply now for the Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Communications Training Course
ESA’s Education Office is looking for 30 talented engineering students who would like to be introduced to the fascinating world of spacecraft communications. The Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Communications Training Course 2024 will be held at the Training and Learning Facility, in the European Space Security and Education Centre (ESEC), Belgium, from 12 to 16 February 2024.
When we talk about space missions, few people first mention communications systems, yet sending commands to a satellite and receiving data back is paramount. Given the criticality and complexity of Spacecraft Communications, it’s fair to argue that there would be no space missions without highly skilled communications engineers.
This training course will consist of lectures, group discussions, presentation of real cases and exercises. The lectures will be delivered by an ESA engineer of the Mission Operations Department of ESOC and will include real stories of operations engineers battling wayward spacecraft – sometimes winning and sometimes losing – and discussions about the implications of the way communications systems are designed, how they are used and what problems might occur. Also, the students will learn about ESA’s European space Security and Education Centre (ESEC) and the on-site activities in Redu, including Galileo and PROBA spacecraft operations.
During the week, students will experience live operations “close up” thanks to ESA’s OPS-SAT spacecraft and they will also take part in a group exercise. After designing a communications system for a specific mission, they will be asked to see how it holds up when the mission experiences an anomaly taken from real life. They will be presented with the information available to an operations team at the time the problem occurs and will have to ask themselves "what went wrong?", and more importantly "what can we do now?”.
By the end of the training course, the students will have a solid understanding of the challenges of communicating with a spacecraft and the subsystems involved in communications, both on-board and on the ground: what can go wrong, troubleshooting, and traps to be avoided during operations and testing.
Preliminary schedule
| Day 1 |
Introduction Group exercise introduction Modulation |
| Day 2 |
Demodulation Coding Protocols |
| Day 3 |
Galileo/PROBA Visit of ESEC-Redu Transmission |
| Day 4 |
Reception Real Ground Stations Wrap-up |
| Day 5 |
Final group exercise Conclusion |
Who can apply?
In order to participate, students must fulfil the following criteria at the time of application:
- aged minimum 18 years old. ESA Academy and relevant partners will only appraise applications from students who have no - or limited - professional experience in relevant engineering or space-related topics;
- be a citizen of an ESA Member State, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia or Slovenia;
- be studying for an engineering degree at Bachelor, Master, or PhD level;
- Students who graduate before the Course delivery and will not continue their studies are not eligible.
Selected students will be expected to attend all 5 days of the course.
Upon completion of the training course, students will be evaluated on the group exercise and will receive a certificate of participation and a course transcript, allowing them to request ECTS credit(s) from their respective universities.
The selected students will be sponsored by ESA to cover accommodation and meals, as well as up to 300 Euros for travelling to and from Belgium.
How to apply
- Fill in the application form;
- Upload a motivation letter (PDF, maximum 1 page, no images);
- Upload a CV (PDF, in Europass format, maximum 2 pages, no images);
- Upload a formal recommendation letter (PDF, maximum 1 page, including signature, no images) from a university professor or academic supervisor of current university (if it is not possible to receive the recommendation letter from your referee, please ask them to send a recommendation email to tlp@esa.int before the application deadline);
- Upload a copy of your Transcript of Grades from the two previous semesters, or, if not available, the previous graded academic year (PDF).
All answers and documents should be in English (Transcript of Grades can be submitted in language of hosting university, if unavailable in English).
*Canadian students enrolled in a Canadian post-secondary institution may apply for additional support from the Canadian Space Agency through this Announcement of Opportunity (grant applications must be submitted at least 7 weeks before the course delivery and account creation 3 weeks before the submission deadline – create an account soon!). This additional support is to cover costs that are not already covered by ESA for selected Canadian post-secondary students.
The deadline for applications is 11 December 2023 23:59 CET.
For more information, please contact tlp@esa.int.