Conditions to apply

Students who would like to participate in the Fly Your Thesis! programme must comply with the following criteria at the time of the 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 scientific, engineering or other space-related topics;
• a citizen of an eligible state; 
• a full-time master** or PhD candidate in a university of an eligible state for the period of the experiment development and the time of the campaign;
• studying a scientific or engineering subject.

** Bachelor students are not eligible to the Fly Your Thesis! programme

Team composition

One important condition is that the experiment must be an integral part of at least one students’ thesis. This can be achieved through a master's thesis, a PhD thesis, a research programme or any form of project supported by the applicant’s university.

At the time of the application, the student teams must be able to show ESA's Education Office that they have their university’s support through a letter of endorsement from an endorsing professor or academic supervisor. The core team should be composed of a minimum of four students all of which must fulfil the eligibility criteria (see above). The final number of team members that can personally assist and participate in the execution of the experiment (should the team be selected) will depend strictly on the requirements of the experiment itself and is subject to acceptance from the Review Board. The initial composition of the team cannot be changed throughout the programme. If, for exceptional reasons, changes are necessary, they will be subject to the approval of the ESA Education Office. 

Endorsing professors

Overall endorsing professor
The teams will have to be supported by one of their professors or academic supervisors, whose role will be to supervise the work of the students. This person must belong to the same institution of at least one of the students, is expected to endorse the entire application and development process of the team, and will bear responsibility for the experiment. 

Additional endorsing professor
If the team consists of students from different universities, all students from a university different than that of the overall endorsing professor need to show that they have the support from their university as well. Hence, they also need an endorsing professor or academic supervisor.

At the moment of application, the endorsing professor will have to provide ESA's Education Office with a Letter of Endorsement.  In this letter they should state the names of their students and that they bear responsibility for their involvement in the programme.

ELGRA mentor

Additionally, the European Low Gravity Research Association (ELGRA) will offer each selected team, through a mentorship programme, the possibility to benefit from the support from a European scientist highly experienced in gravity-related research.

The objective of the ELGRA mentors' relationships with the students is to bring some support to the team and to advise them during their experiment rack development. The mentors will primarily focus on the scientific aspects of the projects.

The ELGRA mentor will follow the evolution of the team’s participation until the end of the programme, including the post-campaign activities. He/she will be offered the possibility to visit the institution of the student team.

Experiments constraints

Experiments on animals and genetically modified organisms will not be accepted.

Proposals identical to those already submitted to ESA’s Parabolic Flight Campaign programme of the Directorate of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration will not be accepted.

A particular experiment proposal can be submitted a maximum of two times to the 'Fly your Thesis!' programme. For experiments that are not related to human physiology and thus that don’t require human subjects, please consider a maximum of two operators per flight.

All the technical constraints that shall be considered while developing your project can be founded here.

Selection criteria

In order to assess the experiment proposals, the review board will consider various criteria, such as the scientific or technological interest, the relevance of microgravity for the proposed research, its novelty, the level of involvement of the project in the students’ syllabus, and others. The selection will be performed in a single step. Please carefully consider the technical constraints related to the Airbus 310 Zero-G to make sure your experiment fits with the platform’s possibilities.

Submitted proposals will be evaluated on completion of all the relevant steps.

If two proposals are of equal quality, priority will be given to teams and/or projects that haven't flown on parabolic flights already or did not yet participate in another ESA Education Office programmes. 

ESA Education reserves the right for final decision on participants allowed to fly on aircraft and since this is an educational programme all experiment operators must be student team members listed as such in the Experiment Reports submitted to ESA Education. No exceptions will be allowed.

Please read the how to apply page carefully. 

Please note that the conditions detailed above are subject to change without prior notice.