Suaineadh Selected for REXUS 11/12 Campaign!!!!

We just received the email that we were selected to launch our experiment on a REXUS sounding rocket in February/March 2012. Everyone in the team is very excited about the great news. There will be definetly some celebration in Glasgow and Stockholm tonight :).

Its time to prepare now for the Student Training Week and Preliminary design Review (PDR) at DLR Oberpfaffenhofen in February.

Team Awaiting Decision on Selection

Tomorrow (Friday, 10th of December) is decision day, ESA/DLR will inform us about their selection of the experiments for the REXUS 11/12 campaign. All the team members in Glasgow and Stockholm are anticipating this important decision. We will update the blog as soon as we receive further information.

The Selection Workshop is over

Sad to say, it’s our last day in snowy Holland. But we made our fond farewells last night with a visit to the local pubs. The first one had what we believe was a gun shot in the front window (Thomas chose this one) and the second was a brilliant corner pub with a fine selection of beers. We also introduced Thomas and Adam to their first Scottish whiskey (Thomas liked, but Adam said he could have gotten the same taste from simply licking wood!!)

Anyway, as it was our last day today, we made a quick trip to the airport early to check in our luggage and then proceeded swiftly to Amsterdam. We enjoyed a canal boat tour of the city and then Thomas decided to repeat the tour but instead on foot…..not happy!!! Nah, it was good, although some people should close their curtains because you could see them through their windows standing in their underwear (although, come to think of it, there were a lot of red lights about?!!). Jokes aside, our trip to ESA has been a fantastic experience and we thank the guys at ESTEC immensely for the opportunity. Jerker and Adam are on their way back to Sweden whilst Thomas and Malcolm prepare to brave the snow of Scotland again!!!!

We shall let you all know the decision of the judging panel for Rexus as soon as we find out, wish us luck!!!!

Presentation Day

After practicing all evening for the presentation and having a good night sleep we got up and headed out to the cold bus that took us to ESTEC.

Whilst there we made our presentation. Even in the absence of a morning coffee, we think that we did our best at the presentation as well as answering the questions from the selection board.

After the presentation we had a small ("wee") amount coffee to celebrate (8 x Espresso for Jerker) and then listened to all of the BEXUS proposals. When arriving back at the hotel we went down to the snowy beach shown in the pictures. Now begins the long wait until next Friday (10^th) when the results from the selection board is posted. Wish us the best of luck!

2nd day Selection Workshop

Today we started our day with breakfast ... actually not exactly all of us ... only Adam went for breakfast while we were still sleeping (the bus leaving at 8:30am is just too early). However we woke up full of positive energy to go and listen to the first presentations of the other teams fighting for a spot on the REXUS 11/12 rocket. There were 3 more presentations before launch ... yyy lunch. After that we had the great opportunity to visit the ESTEC facilities. First we saw the Satellite Testing Facility with one of the Galileo satellites under development, unfortunately taking pictures was forbidden. Then we went to Erasmus User Centre for International Space Station, where we lost the group because we had to take a group picture in the ERASMUS (COLUMBUS control) center.