Space for Sustainability Award winners attend EISC
On Friday 16th of September, the European Interparliamentary Space Conference (EISC) took place in the French Senate. The event dedicated the session on the crucial topic of a Sustainable Use of Space. The plenary, as every year, hosted the Prize Ceremony of the 'Space for Sustainability' Award, rewarding the 1st Prize winners and the ‘Special Mentions of the Jury’ of both 9th (year 2021) and 10th (year 2022) editions.
The Prize Ceremony
After an presentation of the concept and purpose of the Award, the awardees have presented their project idea and have been rewarded by Ms. Sophie Primas, MP and Mr. Andrea Vena, ESA Chief Climate & Sustainability officer.
The winner of the 1st Prize of the 9th edition is the team composed with Audrey Berquand & Andrew Wilson. They presented a project idea related to the coastal management in the context of rising sea levels: ‘SEA from Space’
Rising global sea levels are already having an extremely damaging effect on local communities, human infrastructure, and the economy. The negative repercussions of this is only expected to worsen, meaning that effective coastal management strategies are critical. This project proposes the development of a new tool which acts as a strategic decision-support system for coastal management. These results can then be used to inform Shoreline Management Plans
The ’Special Mention of the Jury’ of the same edition was distributed to Esha with the project idea ‘Self-cremating Satellite’
Deorbiting sail devices have already been developed to reduce space debris especially in low Earth orbit. However, they are still limited to nano or micro satellites. In this paper, limitation and challenges of current deorbiting devices have been studied. A new concept, the so-called self-cremating satellite is proposed. This concept can be implemented on future satellites as well as upper rocket stages in low Earth orbit. The self-cremating satellite promotes sustainable use of the orbital environment as well as the Earth’s atmosphere by reducing the rate of generation of space debris
For this year’s edition, the Mikel Iturbe, won the 1st Prize with the project named ‘Space and Stratosphere for Extreme Surface Climate’
Recent stratosphere alterations have caused a series of catastrophic environmental and socio-economic events over several northern hemisphere areas. The present project idea suggests the development of a combined stratospheric & space service to enhance current satellite measurements and climate models predictability with an unprecedented set of in situ and real-time data. High- Altitude Pseudo-Satellite capabilities are proposed as added value solutions to Earth Observation space satellite needs. Results from this approach shall support effective policy-making for quicker reactions against such events
Finally, Mingyue Yuan got the Special Mention of the Jury of the year 2022 with the following project idea: Understanding and evaluating the consequences of greening across the Arctic
The Arctic has been experiencing the fastest warming under climate change. One of its consequences is “Arctic Greening”. Some research findings suggest that this process might disturb the soil carbon storage. The feedback on climate change could be massive because the Arctic stores the largest amount of soil carbon on earth. However, there is still lack of understanding of Arctic greening and its influence on soil carbon storage. Herein, this project idea is to integrate the above-ground biomass monitored by satellite missions, the below-ground biomass estimated by a network of empirical studies and the measurements of carbon emissions, to better understand the Arctic Greening, to evaluate the severity of its effect on carbon fluxes, and to promote future climate action.
You can find more information about the Award and the project ideas of the previous editions on the award’s webpage.