In our second episode dedicated to PhD life, we dig into the primary steps of a PhD, including searching and applications, timing and consequent interviews and tips for the Resume.
The first of a series of episodes dedicated to PhD life. The series is made to help all of those students who are interested in starting a PhD and want to have a better idea about this commitment. We will share our personal experiences that we hope can help you clarify the challenges and the positive aspects of a PhD. We dedicate this first episode to the changes and adjustments that PhD life may request.
The winner of the #PlanetaryScience4All EPEC-EPSC Video Contest 2022 is ’29P & Comet Chasers’ by Cai Stoddard-Jones.
Hi, I’m Cai, a first year PhD student at Cardiff University. I’m from North Wales originally, but made the trek down south in 2017 to start my MPhys. I like to listen to and make music in my free time either singing or playing my guitar. I’m researching comet 29P’s unusual activity, it’s the most observed comet ever yet, we know very little about it. I aim to characterise the comet. In addition, I develop resources and experiments for a project called ‘Comet Chasers’ in Wales. We teach kids about cometary science and giving them LCO telescope time to take their own images. If their images are used by researchers, their schools are credited.
On the second episode of “Stairway to Space”, we talk with Noah Jäggi, chair of the EPEC at EPSC Working Group. We present the activities of our network at the imminent Europlanet Science Congress.
Welcome to the first episode of “Stairway to Space”, the EPEC Podcast. We introduce our network’s activities and we present our new communication effort. Do you want to participate in one of those great projects? Join us now!
The Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) network is organised by early-career researchers, for early-career researchers, and includes volunteers from across the Europlanet international community. The EPEC network is open to all early-career planetary scientists and space professionals whose last degree (e.g. MSc or PhD) was obtained a maximum of 7 years ago (excluding parental leave, serious illness and similar delays).
One of the main objectives of EPEC is to form a strong network between young professionals by organising early-career-relevant events and by engaging in different projects amongst the different working groups (see website for more details on working groups). Furthermore, the EPEC community aims to bring a young voice into Europlanet Society to shape the future of planetary and space sciences and engineering.
The EPEC Committee and the nine EPEC Working Groups are constantly looking for interested early-career professionals who are willing to spend some of their academic time with the organising elements of various EPEC activities. By getting involved with the EPEC Committee or one of the Working Groups, you not only get a chance to build a diverse professional network across Europe and abroad, but also build important soft-skills such as leadership qualities and management experience by working with a very friendly and energetic community.
If you would like to receive news (e.g., about the annual EPEC week or the next activities planned at EPSC), please sign up here. We will not spam you with lots of emails, but only send a few emails per year with relevant information.
Hydrothermal systems are crucial environments for astrobiology: they are thought to be the theatre of life’s origins, host unprecedented polyextremophilic biodiversity, and are key targets in the search for life throughout the Solar System, especially on Mars and icy moons.
Join the first EANA online school to learn about hydrothermal systems from interdisciplinary perspectives at the interfaces of geology, biology and chemistry. From May 17th–21st, 2021, there will be one or two talks each day on a particular aspect of hydrothermal systems.
The school is free of charge and is an ideal opportunity to discover or deepen your understanding of these unique environments. For more information about the lecturers and to register for the school, please visit http://www.eana-net.eu.
The EPEC Communication Working Group is responsible for the presence of all the EPEC activities. The aim of the social media pages is to highlight the contribution of young professionals within the space sector. Currently, we are active on two platforms, Twitter and Facebook, and we plan to expand our presence in the future also in other media, with the objective to reach and connect as many Early Career people as possible. If you would like to get updates for the EPEC activities, job and funding opportunities, new research and open candidacies within our network, follow us and help us to spread the news!!
In the news, we often hear about New Space companies and their goals to ‘revolutionise’ the access and use of space. Think, for example, of Blue Origin and their planned Blue Moon lunar lander. These new opportunities to access planetary bodies are not, however, always considered in the planetary science community as serious options.
We wonder: are private space companies overlooked because there is some uncertainty as to whether they will eventually launch? Is it worth considering such opportunities when we think of the future of planetary science?
Here at the EPEC Future Research Working Group, we want to explore whether New Space companies will affect how we do research in the future. To find out more, we spoke with Dr Thorben Könemann, Deputy Scientific Director of the ZARM Drop Tower Operation and Service Company at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) in Bremen, and Dr Erika Wagner, payload sales director at Blue Origin in Kent, Washington.
‘Complementary’ is the keyword that Dr Könemann uses to describe the opportunities provided by New Space companies. His engineering team at ZARM integrates and supports microgravity experiments that have also flown onboard Blue Origin’s reusable launch vehicle, New Shepard, and Dr Könemann has been involved in those experiments from the beginning.
‘Blue Origin provides complementary access to space with a different set of boundary conditions for the payload than was previously available,’ Dr Könemann says. ‘Examples of such boundary conditions are: payload mass, duration and quality of microgravity, performance of the vehicle, and finally pricing. The availability of a new option increases the chance of finding a launcher that meets the requirement of an experiment and thus the chance to obtain an opportunity to fly.’
Although those experiments are generally more focused on microgravity research and less on planetary science, ZARM’s experience of becoming involved with Blue Origin still gives us lessons that can be applied to planetary science.
Through talking to Dr Könemann, it is clear that today, we are not necessarily witnessing a radical change in how space missions are developed, but rather an increase in the ways that space can be reached and studied. Flights provided by Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rocket are an example of such new methods.
Dr Könemann states, ‘ZARM reached out early to potential new launch providers a decade ago. We not only contacted Blue Origin but also spoke to other upcoming companies, some of which don’t exist anymore.’
Therefore, even though the flight opportunities from new space companies for planetary science beyond Earth do not exist at present, it does make sense to establish relations with these companies early, so as not to miss out on these new opportunities later down the line.
The Blue Moon lunar lander. Credit: Blue Origin.
Looking at the future and at rockets that can reach deep space, Dr Wagner says, ‘Blue Origin will be able to bring a considerable mass and volume of payload onto the surface of the Moon with the Blue Moon lunar lander. This would offer the opportunity to build heavier and more voluminous instruments.’
This is somewhat contrary to the trend of miniaturisation. It is the view of the EPEC Future Research WG that being aware of these opportunities from now will enable the community to develop instrumentation that makes optimal use of the new diverse platforms when they become available (and planning space missions is a long process – check out our series on the ESA Voyage 2050 white papers).
Dr Wagner also explains that of the 100 experiments to have flown on New Shepard, only 3 were funded by European agencies. Thus, it seems that there is a slower uptake on commercial opportunities in Europe when compared with the USA.
Dr Wagner suggests, “If early career researchers want to see an increase in this uptake, they could enable this change by advocating for the potential use of these new opportunities.”
For example, early career researchers can include these possibilities in white papers for government surveys equivalent to the US decadal survey, or through bodies such as the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC).
We conclude that new space companies could provide further opportunities in the future to reach our planetary destinations. To make the most of these opportunities, however, it helps to establish connections early, and early career researchers can encourage a move in this direction by advocating for links between planetary science and future launches by private space companies.
