The COSPAR
Panel for Capacity Building (PCB) is trying to establish a long-term capacity
building project together with the International Satellite Program in Research
and Education (INSPIRE), based on the development and scientific exploitation
of small satellites. This project aims to enable space hardware and
instrumentation development and to provide guidance on best practices for
hardware development, sustainable space activities, and crafting space policy
among emerging space nations.
Within the
INSPIRE Program undergraduate and graduate university students are involved in
small-satellite design, building, testing, and operations. Capacity building
courses are held in the premises of Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space
Physics (LASP), in Boulder, Colorado, USA, in an eight-week summer training
program.
COSPAR PCB will support in a pilot project in 2020 a small team of four students and a supervisor from a university in the developing world, to participate in this year’s INSPIRE training program, running for 8 weeks from June 1 to July 24. All participants will be lodged along with other INSPIRE interns on a shared basis (2 beds pro room) on a 4-persons university student apartment.
A selection
will take place, based on several criteria, among others:
- Technical
and scientific level of students and supervisor proposed
- Likelihood that the university is able and
keen to maintain a nanosatellite laboratory for some years, in which the
selected team can work further (ie. collaborating in the started project during
the training)
- Quality of the university lab
- Level of partial local funding which could be
obtained for the first “pilot” group
There will
be no registration fee. On the contrary, all participants will be offered free
board and lodging, as well as travel grants. However, a certain level of local
funding is expected to cover partially the high costs of such a program.
Selection
will take place in March, on the basis of the attached filled-in application
form, to be submitted to cospar.lasp.initiative@gmail.com not later than March 31. Mid-April
the selection results will be announced.
Application form