Excellence with passion
7 ISAE-SUPAERO students on their way to recreate a Martian experience
Available online :
A team of 7 ISAE-SUPAERO students would be soon packing their bags for their martian exploration.
During their proposes 3 weeks of extensive tests at the MARS society in the deserts of Utah (USA), ranging from the extravehicular walks to the critical equipment testing, MDRS SUPAERO Crew 175 will also contribute to a research study for NASA.
These students will find themselves confounded into an eight meter habitable cylinder, strategically placed in the isolated environment of Utah desert to simulate closely the real experiences of those prospective astronauts that would visit the red planet in the coming future.
Headed by their captain Arthur Lillo who has already played an integral role just like his counter part Louis Maller in the previous similar expedition carried out by students of ISAE-SUPAERO in 2016, the team in 2017 will be comprised of Simon Bouriat (Doctor), Mouâdh Bouayad (Astronomer), Victoria Da-Poian (Biologist), Xavier Rixhon (Engineer) and Louis Mangin as a journalist.
Enamoured by their passion for the space exploration, these students continue to burn their midnight oil preparing their experiments :
- verification of the deployment mechanism of a seismometer, to be used on the NASA Insight mission in 2018,
- testing of an innovative localisation tool which would help the astronauts to track their movements and will be accessible readily from their suit helmets,
- the agriculture of lettuce and micro greens in the environment of GreenHab for testing the growth potential of these nutritious salads, with the start up Vegidair,
- other experiments with virtual reality goggles and balloons,
- and a study, as a courtesy of NASA for determining the best layout for a team for ensuring an optimized performance for a long space exploration.
Following the footsteps of their alumni Thomas Pesquet, these students aim for demystifying the enigma of this red planet which would test their abilities, know-how and teamwork in many complex missions.
This project is an initiative of these young people to apply their classroom knowledge to practical experimentations which has been a backbone of the pedagogy at ISAE- SUPAERO which also collaborates with CNES for a student rocket project « Perseus », Eco Marathon Shell, Challenge big data…
