ESA Academy activities during COVID-19

Abstract

The ESA Academy is the ESA Education Office’s overarching programme for university students. The Academy’s portfolio consists of both ‘hands-on’ activities, and a Training and Learning Programme. Conventionally both of these elements involve a significant number of in person events, for example training sessions, workshops and test and launch campaigns. The educational nature and practical aspects of such events has traditionally necessitated in person participation. Additionally, most of the Academy’s ‘hands-on’ programmes revolve around student teams designing, building, testing and operating an experiment or spacecraft, activities which rely on the availability and delivery of commercial components, and access to manufacturing, testing and launch facilities, and laboratories. In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic, and associated restrictions, began to take hold in Europe, nearly all the ESA Academy programmes were affected. Despite the challenges, the Academy continued to deliver activities, and the student teams participating in the Academy’s programmes continued to achieve major milestones, including launching experiments to the ISS, CubeSat testing and launch and execution of micro- and hyper-gravity experiments. This paper explores the challenges faced during COVID-19 and how both the programmes and the students participating in the programmes adapted to meet their educational, scientific, and technical goals. Furthermore, the longer-term adaptation of some of these changes into the future execution of the programmes is discussed