NASA Announces Opportunities for Students

NASA 50^th Anniversary Essay Contest for Students

The NASA 50^th Anniversary Essay Competition for middle and junior high school students is now accepting entries. The competition consists of two separate topics, each with a limit of 500 words. The first topic challenges students to describe how they benefit in their everyday lives from space technologies built by NASA over the last 50 years. The second topic requires students to imagine how their everyday lives will have changed because of NASA space technology in the next 50 years.

Students may submit two separate essays, each responding to a separate topic. Participants must be U.S. students in grades 5-9 and under the age of 15.

An optional notice of intent is due on Dec. 7, 2007. Final entries are due on or before Jan. 7, 2008. For more information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/5-8/features/F_Essay_Competition.html

NASA Undergraduate Student Research Program Spring 2008 Internship Session

NASA's Undergraduate Student Research Program is currently accepting applications for 15-week spring 2008 internships. These internships offer students the opportunity to work alongside NASA scientists and engineers at NASA's centers, laboratories and test facilities.

Applicants must be U.S. college sophomores, juniors or seniors with majors or course work concentration in engineering, mathematics, computer science, or physical or life sciences. Applicants must be U.S. citizens.

The application deadline for the spring 2008 session is Oct. 22, 2007.

For more information, visit: http://education.nasa.gov/usrp

NASA Announces Opportunities for Students

NASA 50^th Anniversary Essay Contest for Students

The NASA 50^th Anniversary Essay Competition for middle and junior high school students is now accepting entries. The competition consists of two separate topics, each with a limit of 500 words. The first topic challenges students to describe how they benefit in their everyday lives from space technologies built by NASA over the last 50 years. The second topic requires students to imagine how their everyday lives will have changed because of NASA space technology in the next 50 years.

Students may submit two separate essays, each responding to a separate topic. Participants must be U.S. students in grades 5-9 and under the age of 15.

An optional notice of intent is due on Dec. 7, 2007. Final entries are due on or before Jan. 7, 2008. For more information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/5-8/features/F_Essay_Competition.html

NASA Undergraduate Student Research Program Spring 2008 Internship Session

NASA's Undergraduate Student Research Program is currently accepting applications for 15-week spring 2008 internships. These internships offer students the opportunity to work alongside NASA scientists and engineers at NASA's centers, laboratories and test facilities.

Applicants must be U.S. college sophomores, juniors or seniors with majors or course work concentration in engineering, mathematics, computer science, or physical or life sciences. Applicants must be U.S. citizens.

The application deadline for the spring 2008 session is Oct. 22, 2007.

For more information, visit: http://education.nasa.gov/usrp

ESA : Satellites help ensure efficient use of pesticides

15 October 2007
A new service, developed in the framework of an ESA-supported project, is using satellite images to compare agricultural crop sites across Europe in order to ensure the more efficient use of pesticides.

Pesticides currently used within the European Union (EU) must be registered with the national members of the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), which requires efficiency data derived from field trials. EPPO has defined zones of comparable climates across Europe that allow data generated in one country to support registration in another country within the same climatic zone.

The new service, Site Similarity Certification (SSC), merges satellite images with conventional data like temperature, precipitation, soil characteristics and recurring natural phenomena to improve the scientific approach in defining comparable zones and the transferability of field trial results achieved in one EU member state to another.

	Weekly comparison of sites in Germany and Poland

"In view of the needs for testing and regulating Plant Protection Products within EPPO member countries, the continuation of the already successfully started efforts to integrate the use of satellite images into the process of pesticide registration seems to be a promising tool," Dr Udo Heimbach a member of the EPPO Working Party said. "Satellite images are intended to be used to prove the similarity of trial sites and herewith to improve the procedure of mutual recognition of trial results throughout Europe, which is one of the aims of EPPO."

Proving the comparability of cropping sites saves the pesticide industry from carrying out expensive perennial trials, allows field trials to be planned more efficiently and creates the possibility of substituting missing field trials for Site Similarity Certifications.

Spatial Business Integration GmbH developed this new service as part of an ESA Earth Observation Market Development (EOMD) project. EOMD is a programme aimed at strengthening the European and Canadian capacity to provide geoinformation services based mainly on Earth Observation data, with a particular emphasis on addressing the needs of small value-adding companies.

ESA : Recently concluded activities to validate innovative technologies for space

15 October 2007 ESA’s Innovation Triangle Initiative (ITI) is an opportunity for European Industry and Academia to validate their new ideas for Space. Every year, ESA organises a ITI Final Presentations Day (FPD) event where the entities involved in recently concluded ITI activities are invited to present the results of their work to an audience that includes industry colleagues, interested ESA experts and delegations. This year the ITI FPD will occur on 16 and 17 October in ESTEC. The draft Agenda foresees the presentation of 17 ITI activities covering many different domains from electrical to mechanical including new materials and software. Just two examples:

Current mote size SSTL (UK) will present their results on an activity entitled - "Wireless sensor motes for on-board networking and inter-satellite communications", whose scope was to "Establish the feasibility of adapting free standing compact wireless sensor packages or "motes" for communication between spacecraft subsystems (harness reduction) and ultimately between small low cost spacecraft flying in formation or an ad-hoc swarm (ultra-low power inter-satellite networking)".

Schematic cut-through of the experimental assembly The “Ionic Liquid Ion Source Array for Electrical Propulsion” developed by EPFL is an interesting candidate for low thrust propulsion system in interferometric missions and as attitude or orbit control system on small satellites. Based on an array of electrospray thruster systems, ideal for miniaturization using micromachining technologies, these emitters are capable of generating thrust in the range from micro- to millinewtons.

About ITI The objective of the Innovation Triangle Initiative (ITI) is to foster the fast introduction of disruptive innovations into any technical domain of the European space industry by combining the creativity, know-how and experience of the research community and industry with the end customers. ITI is based on the ‘Innovation Triangle’ concept, which states that the rapid and successful introduction of disruptive innovations in industry requires the collaboration of three different entities: a customer, a developer and an inventor.

Current status For 2007, the ITI Announcement of Opportunity was published on 5 April in EMITS (reference AO/1-5403/07/NL/CB). Currently the ITI Evaluation Board is conducting the third and last evaluation round within 2007. ITI was launched in 2004. Since then, 81 contracts have been placed with a total value of €7.5 million. ITI promotes spin-in, meaning that innovations originating from non-space industrial or research sectors are particularly welcome.