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European Space Agency

Press Release

Entries in for design competition

27 March 2003
 
The entries are now in for the Aurora student design competition: a
call to graduate and undergraduate teams from universities within
Europe and Canada to come up with ideas for the robotic and human
exploration of the Moon, Mars and asteroids. 
 
Altogether 54 project outlines have been received from universities
in Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy
Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK. The
majority of entries fall under the heading of surface robotics, with
a close second coming under new enabling technologies, that is, ideas
for new technology to enable the robotic or human exploration of
planets and asteroids. However, entries were received in all the
categories making the distribution of project proposals fairly
balanced.
 
 
What happens now?
 
According to Piero Messina, who is in charge of the contest, "All the
entries received are of a high standard. Only one project, although
interesting, was not considered relevant to the scope of the
competition. We have notified all those who entered and the teams now
have until 30 July to submit the final project". 

The top three projects in each category will be invited to attend the
Aurora Academia Workshop scheduled for 8 and 9 September and which
will probably be hosted by the University of Catalunya in Barcelona.
There the teams will present their project proposals to an audience
of experts and the final winners will be announced.

Further information regarding the competition, including a list of
the final prizes, will be sent to the teams and will also be posted
on the Aurora website under the FAQ link. Teams can also email any
enquiries to the following address:

students4aurora{at}esa.int

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