REXUS/BEXUS Student Training Week 2015

From February 9th until February 13th, the HACORD team was present at the REXUS/BEXUS student training week at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, for our preliminary design review (PDR). Besides getting very interesting and helpful lectures we got a chance to meet the other selected teams and to discuss our projects.

The week started off on Monday with an introduction to the current space related projects and activities of all the agencies, followed by a few interesting lectures. Among them, a lecture about the PDR procedure and a lecture about implementation. The day ended with a Bavarian dinner and a visit to the Andechs monastery.

On Tuesday, we had lectures about software, GPS, project management, atmospheric physics and many others. We were also happy to present our project to all the other teams and we enjoyed listening to the presentations of the other BEXUS 20/21 teams as well. We also had the opportunity to have a peek at the gondola and see how our detector will fit in.

On Wednesday, we had, after having interesting lectures about telemetry and thermal design, a tour around the GCC and the Columbus control centre which we found very interesting to see with our own eyes. After, we had some time to ask the experts about electronics which we, of course, made good use of. In the late afternoon the REXUS teams presented their experiments for the other teams.

Thursday morning we finally got to present our PDR. We were all very nervous but it all went fine. It was nice hearing the opinions of the experts and getting tips on how to improve our project. We even got a chance to ask questions ourselves which was very helpful. Later that day, we got a tour around the robotics and research planes at DLR. We saw some amazing robots, including 'Rollin' Justin' which is a robot designed to do household chores. We also got a chance to ask te experts about mechanics. In the evening we were invited to the German Technical Museum where we had a lecture by Frank Wukasch about OTRAG, the first private German rocket company. The day ended with a very nice meal in the museum.

After a short night of sleep, it was our last day at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen. We got a presentation about the REXUS/BEXUS campaign and a lecture to help us prepare for the CDR's. After this, it sadly was time to return to Belgium.

We all enjoyed this week very much and are very thankful to ESA, DLR, SNSB, SSC and ZARM to give us this opportunity.

We are now preparing ourselves for the next meeting, which will be the critical design review (CDR) in May in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

We will keep you all updated! ;)

Greetings from the HACORD team!

The HACORD-team in front of a model of the ISS at DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen