LDE Space Challenge, 2024-2025 - Prospectus

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Admission requirements

This course is part of the LDE Space & Society Honours Programme (Leiden-Delft-Erasmus) and is therefore only open to students that are enrolled in this programme.

Topics

Space disciplines' fundamentals and interactions, interdisciplinary system thinking, space for society

Disciplines

Space Law
Space Governance & Society
Space Engineering & Technology
Space Applications & Exploration
Space Business & Innovation

Skills

Analysing
Generating Solutions
Project-based working
Collaborating
Oral communication
Societal awareness

Number of students

Minimum of 24 and maximum 45.

Description

In this challenge, students from various backgrounds work in small teams (approx. 6 students per team) on real-life interdisciplinary space challenges. These challenges address problems faced by the space sector in current and future space activities and/or challenges for which the space sector requires an immediate solution.

An example of such a challenge could be to develop solutions to handle space debris, a growing concern that threatens the future of space activities. Another example could be to draft a plan for international exploration of the Moon or Mars or to create a business plan for monitoring climate change measures from space.

The students will learn how to apply the knowledge obtained during the LDE Space Fundamentals and Interactions, through a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to investigating and addressing the challenge. Through this approach the students will develop novel and implementable solutions to the challenge.

A successful outcome of the challenge would result to a clear iterative improvement of the problems raised by the challenge, where the students teams continuously develop their understanding of the problem and work on broadening their search for its solution. In terms of output, a successful result would be to propose new approaches and solution prototypes for relevant stakeholders, in order to help them address the problems they face.

Course objectives

Work effectively in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams.
Analyse a real-life problem of the space sector problem from multiple perspectives.
Identify the relevant concepts from the disciplines introduced during the Space Fundamentals & Interactions and apply them to the challenge in a way that contributes to its solutions.
Combine insights from different disciplines to substantiate the design of solutions.
Present the challenge outcome effectively, in oral and written form.

Programme and timetable

Meetings will be organized on Wednesdays, will begin at 19:00 and run for 2 hours. The programme will include meetings of the following types:

face to face coordination meetings with the rest of your group,
group supervision meetings with course instructors,
progress meetings presenting and giving feedback to other groups with:
- Problem Statement review
- Mid Term Review
- Final Review
Meetings with regional stakeholders at a frequency depending on availability and the specific challenge
Public presentation day to sector, friends & family

Dates - Wednesdays 19:00 - 21:00
Locations will alternate between 3 locations (Leiden (The Hague), Delft & Erasmus)), so be prepared to travel for sessions.

Reading list

Readings will be directed in relation to the challenges undertaken and literature will be announced in class or via Brightspace.

Course load and teaching method

This course is worth 8 ECTS, which means the total course load equals 224 hours:

10 Project session divided over 13 weeks of = 2 hours weekly (participation is mandatory)
Review Sessions:
- Problem Statement review: 4 hours
- Mid Term Review: 2 hours
- Final Review: 2 hours
Practical work: 10 hours/week
Final Public presentation 4 hours

Assessment methods

The assessment methods is with a grade, based on the following:

Participation assessed continually through participation in seminars
Final presentation (team grade)
Personal evaluation

Brightspace

The Brightspace environment of Leiden University will be used in this course. Students will be enrolled to the Brightspace module by the organisation of the course.

Registration process

To participate in this course, you need to apply for the LDE Space & Society Honours Programme. The application for 2024-2025 is open from 2 September (9:00 hrs) until 6 October (22:00 hrs) through the Honours Academy of Leiden University. The application form will be published on their student website.

Please note: it is not possible to follow (part of) this programme online.
Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for this course. Your registration will be done centrally.

Contact

Programme coordinator: Peter Batenburg, LDESpaceSocietyHonours@ha.leidenuniv.nl.