ESA : ESA launches the next SUCCESS Student Contest

Imagine how you would feel if YOUR ideas were up there!

21 September 2007
Are you interested in a one-year paid internship at ESA's European Research and Technology Centre, ESTEC, in the Netherlands to work on your own experiment, and qualify it for flight to the International Space Station? Then read on...

About the contest

The SUCCESS Student Contest is a competition for European university students - up to the level of Masters or equivalent - to propose experiments that could be conducted on board the International Space Station (ISS).

	Hardware of Bone Proteomics which was conducted on board the ISS in April 2005

Just imagine how the Space Station environment (e.g. weightlessness, the vacuum of outer space, the high altitude above the Earth, space radiation, the isolated environment for the astronauts...) could be relevant to your experiment idea and university research.

The goal of the competition is to make today's students the Space Station users of tomorrow!

The contest is open to university students and ESA expects proposals from a variety of engineering, technology and science disciplines.

ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter working on UTBI, which flew on board the ISS in October 2006

How to participate

To take part, please describe your experiment idea in an essay of not more than 800 words. The essay must be submitted in English and uploaded electronically via the SUCCESS web page (http://www.esa.int/success) no later than 1 February 2008.

For the latest news about the contest and the different selection phases of the contest, please frequently visit the SUCCESS web site. The web site also contains information about previous SUCCESS contests with insights into the student experiments already flown on the ISS.

	The second phase participants at the Award Ceremony in March 2007

First prize and award ceremony

As mentioned above, the 1st prize winner will receive a one-year paid internship at ESTEC, to work on his/her experiment idea and prepare it for flight to the ISS.

The final award ceremony which will take place in the Spring 2009 (date and European location to be announced) after the second and final selection phases have been completed. All second-phase participants will also be invited to attend the ceremony and all contest participants will receive a certificate of participation.