ESA hands-on space education project activities for university students: Attracting and training the next generation of space engineers

ESA provides numerous opportunities for university students from ESA Member and Cooperating States to gain practical hands-on engineering experience on real space projects. These opportunities cover a broad spectrum of flight project activities ranging from student experiment payloads on microgravity platforms, atmospheric balloons, and sub-orbital sounding rockets to instruments and small platforms for Earth and Moon orbiting satellites. The education satellite projects range in size from pico-satellites to mini-satellites and are complemented by a global network of education institution and radio amateur ground stations. This paper describes the hands-on space engineering education programme and its setup, the engineering education methods, and the knowledge/skills transferred to the students, in addition to summary technical information on the projects concerned.