The deadline is approaching for students to register in the European Space Agency's exciting competition to design an experiment for the International Space Station.
Sunday 14 February is the cut-off date for registration in SUCCESS (Space station Utilisation Contest Calls for European Student InitiativeS) a competition to get European students from all disciplines to work out a flight proposal for the European Drawer Rack or the Microgravity Science Glovebox on the International Space Station.
Go to the SUCCESS website (http://www.international-space-station.de), from which you can enrol for the competition. Once you have received acknowledgement of your registration you can start to write an essay (not more than 10 pages) which gives a more precise view of your idea. Your essay will be forwarded to a professional juror who is specialised in your field of work.
In this phase of the contest there will be an expert day where you can find help and talk to experts and other participants all over Europe in an Internet chat-room. You can even get in contact with other students working on the same or a similar ideas and you can form teams to work out the best essay.
On the 7th of April the jury will have evaluated all essays and will have selected the final participants of the contest. Those who have qualified for the final round will be contacted and can start with the detailed work on their flight proposals.
In the final round students or student-groups with similar ideas can form interdisciplinary, trans-European teams to work together on their flight proposals for the European Drawer Rack (EDR) or the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) on the ISS. All participants of the final round will receive a list of the students working on similar projects for the chance to work together and multiply their chances to win. Those teams will be invited to ESTEC, to get each other to know and find help from ESA professionals.
On the 29th of August all flight proposals will have been submitted by email.
The proposals will be evaluated by the jury and the winners will be invited to an award event in October 1999.