A series of posts about my time at the 2018 Alpbach Summer School.
Day 10 in Alpbach, the final day of the Summer School, was all about the final presentations. The order of them was randomly chosen by the judges, with my Orange team being picked to go first. We were a bit nervous, with so much work over the past nine days Read more…
Day 9 of the Alpbach Summer School was extremely busy, with the whole team in the final push to finish our report and presentation before the hard deadline at midnight. The day started with us all meeting at the school house at 9:30am after a late night last night addressing Read more…
Today has been a very busy day in Alpbach, with lots of work to prepare for the afternoon’s Final Design Review (FDR). During yesterday’s Preliminary Design Review (PDR), we received many useful pieces of feedback from the reviewers on how we could strengthen our science case and the technical side Read more…
Today in Alpbach, we had the final lectures of the Summer School. While it was great to be able to crack on with lots more work before our afternoon Preliminary Design Review (PDR), it was also somewhat sad to think that we wouldn’t have any more leading experts from across Read more…
On this, the Sunday of the Alpbach Summer School, we have been back into the swing of things to prepare for our Preliminary Design Review (PDR) on Monday. Arriving at the School House at 9:30, we found the surrounding hills still covered in cloud. The team spent the day continuing Read more…
After yesterday’s hectic preparation for the first review of our mission, this morning was a great opportunity to relax, with almost the entire Summer School cohort going on a hike around the local mountains, guided by our photographer, Michel. Leaving our rendezvous point at the Hotel Böglerhof at 9am, we Read more…
The Friday of the Alpbach Summer School began with a lecture on mission analysis tools by Marcus Hallman, the Chief Mission Analyst at the DLR. This gave a good insight into different trajectories to get to small bodies around the solar system. It was followed by a sampling technology lecture Read more…
Day 3 of the Alpbach Summer School began with a lecture on Earth re-entry by an expert from the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Then came lectures on sample information versus context from the surroundings, and on challenges for sample return such as cometary activity. After lunch, we dove straight back Read more…
The first Wednesday of the Alpbach Summer School has included a selection of lectures from ESA, DLR and the Universities of Vienna and Leicester. Subjects included what we can learn from meteorites, mission design and analysis, why we need to bring samples back to Earth and navigation before and during Read more…
Today has been my first day of work at the Alpbach Summer School. The day started with registration at 8am, followed at 9am by open speeches from the Summer School Director, Michaela Gitsch, and other staff involved in the running of the Summer School. At 10am, a coffee break gave Read more…