29 Oct 1999

Draw me a Telescope

This competition was open to schoolchildren aged 8 to 12, from schools in the 14 ESA member states. Classes got together to produce a drawing of a telescope. Out of over 350 entries received in the month the competition was running, one per member state was selected, and will be included in the official XMM logo. This logo will be displayed for the first time on the fairing of the Ariane-5 rocket on the day it launches the XMM spacecraft. ESA is inviting one child per country, representing each winning class, to French Guiana to see the launch.

The winners belong to the following schools:

What's new, Mr Galileo?

And the winning classes are:

Over 450 university students in Amsterdam

Between 4 and 8 October, at ESA's invitation, 463 university students from all over Europe attended the 50th IAF (International Astronautical Federation) congress, in Amsterdam, alongside over 2000 space experts, scientists, engineers and managers. For the first time, a significant number of students were given the opportunity to follow the various sessions and to exchange views and ideas with experts from all over the world.

The interest and enthusiasm the students demonstrated throughout the congress were rewarded with a prize draw at a special student social event. Prizes were drawn by ESA's Director General, Antonio Rodot`, who also gave a keynote address to the students. Third prize was a special Internet account, second prize a trip to Kourou to witness an Ariane launch, and first prize a trip to Rio de Janeiro to attend the 51st IAF congress next year.

The lucky winners were:

Luigi Adamo, University of Palermo, Italy - 3rd prize
Joost van Leeuwen, TU Delft, the Netherlands - 3rd prize
Wouter Jonker, TU Delft, the Netherlands - 3rd prize
Mario Roberto Carraro, University of Bologna, Italy - 3rd prize
Raffaele de Amicis, University of Bologna, Italy - 3rd prize
Charly Pache, Ecole Polytechnique Fidirale de Lausanne, Switzerland - 2nd prize
Erik Wouters, TU Munich, Germany - 1st prize
Stephan Ullmann, TU Munich, Germany - 1st prize

A true success story

The 50th IAF Congress also saw the presentation of prizes to the winners of another contest launched by ESA several months ago (November 1998). Dubbed SUCCESS (for Space Station Utilisation Contest Calling for European Students' IdeaS), the contest was designed to introduce students and their ideas to space and non-space industries to stimulate potential for future industrial research and technology development on the International Space Station.

ESA received 103 experiment proposals from 126 students, in Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, spanning the fields of technology, life sciences, physics, materials science, and Earth observation.

Under the aegis of ESA's Director for Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity programmes, Jvrg Feustel-B|echl, prizes were awarded to:

1st prize: Josi Mariano Lspez-Urdiales, Fernando Mancebo-Ordsqez, Daniel Meizoso-Latova and Pablo Valls-Moldenhauer, Instituto Universitario "Ignacio da Riva", Universidad Politicnica de Madrid, Spain.
2nd prize: Paolo Ariaudo, Universit` degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II", Italy.
3rd prize: Alexander Roger and Anna Glennmar, University of Glasgow, UK.

The Spanish students will each be granted a three-month fellowship at ESA's research and technology centre ESTEC, to work on their experiments and get ready to test them on a parabolic flight campaign. The Italian student won a laptop computer, while the British students will be able to choose a trip to either KSC to attend a Shuttle launch or to Kourou to witness an Ariane launch.

For further information, please contact:

ESA Public Relations Division
Tel: +33(0)1.53.69.7155
Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690