Anna Maria & Markus Maalt, Taltech.
Markus
TEDx and working in science education are Markus' past projects, yet now he has funnelled his passion towards space to kick off a satellite program that is accessible to a wide range of students. He has studied abroad to widen his aerospace knowledge and is back in Tallinn now to share this amazement about space, with others.🌠
Anna
Anna Maria is a Materials Technology student at TalTech and her way of getting new experience is through practice.
Space technologies may seem out of reach and very theoretical, but now that she has been hands-on with the satellite project, she believes that everyone should have the opportunity to learn about space.
Presentation Synopsis:
“TalTech Students Making Space More Accessible Through The Use Of PicoSatellites”
We, along with 30 others as of now, are developing TalTech’s picosatellite which is going to be designed and made by students. None of these students are studying space technology. They are all just dreaming about doing it someday. So, our mission is to help bring aerospace closer to their dreamers.
Our approach to building a satellite is more towards using existing technology and we are making it more about engineering challenges and practical learning project. Yes, space is far away, but designing technology for space can not be only theoretical.
Not only are we offering this to students, but we also want to incorporate at least 3 research projects as well. One research project coming to our satellite is a new kind of solar panels. These solar panels are made of moon regolith and the purpose of developing them is to be ready for the future where we want to create power on other planets or even asteroids. With this project, we are going to be part of that! But we have plans to include at least 3 research projects of which 2 are still up for decision.
We have brought together students and researchers, but we are planning to make it into an even greater project. We are building this satellite under TalTech Space Center, but soon this space center is not going to be solely about space. The idea is to create an environment for a wide range of projects which fit under the aerospace umbrella. It is going to encompass students, researchers and the private sector. This is the place where tomorrow’s space startups are going to gather. Estonia has demonstrated that it is hugely supportive of technology startups and this is going to be the next step on this path.
Authors: Markus Maalt, Anna Maria Tuberg, Rauno Gordon
Figure 1: Our team with a friendly start-up people who launched stratospheric balloons with us.
Figure 2: Preparing for stratospheric balloon test to sync our teamwork and test “aerospace way of doing things”