IAC#4 - Team Kingston

It's not just Kingston staff and alumni who are here at the IAC, students are too. At the registration desk I found Paul Stevens with Pejman Neghadi (both MEng Astro Year 3) nearby. Paul has joined the congress staff to help with the cost of attending, while Pejman is helping man the UKSEDS stand (he is the UKSEDS Treasurer, so I suppose he is making sure that their funds are spent wisely...).

IAC#3 - Two approaches to space tourism

Both EADS Astrium and Virgin Galactic have models of their proposed vehicles on display in the exhibition hall, demonstrating differernt approaches. Astrium (top) proposes an all-in-one rocketplane while Virgin (bottom) will use a two-stage vehicle - an aircraft carries the smaller rocket to its launch altitude.

Given that Virgin (with Scaled Composites) are actually developing flight hardware and have rolled out the carrier aircraft, I know which I expect to see in space first!

IAC#2 - Team Kingston

There are fair few Kingston people attending the IAC, a well as Barnaby and myself. Here are some of them.

First up is Kingston alum Abdul Ismail. After working in the USA for a NASA subcontractor after graduation and attending the ISU Master's programme in Strasbourg, France Abdul set up his own company and now splits his time between the Europe , the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (just behind him you can see EADS Astrium's rover testbed "Bridget").

Another Kingston alum is Flis Holland (former chair of both KUSEDS and UKSEDS) who, supported by the Arts Catalyst has organised Less Remote at the IAC, a symposium about the future of space exploration from the the arts and humanities perspective which has attracted a wide range of international participants.

IAC#1 - The Space Armadillo

The International Astronautical Congress (IAC) is the world's biggest astronautics and space engineering conference. Each year it is held in a different location around the world. The 2008 IAC year is being held in the UK (for the first time in 20 year) in Glasgow. More than 2000+ attendees are present to hear of the latest developments in the space world and attend the exhibition. Amongst the 2000 are staff, students and alumni from Kingston.

The most notable feature of the site is the main auditorium, known locally as The Armadillo (top left) where we had the opening ceremony (left) on Monday morning. After that, the exhibition (more later) opened and the technical sessions started. In the evening the Welcome Reception took place just across the river in the Glasgow Science Centre and culminated with fireworks!

Space jobs in Sweden

Kingston Astro alumnus Erik Clacey (Class of 2005) is now working as a Spacecraft Engineer for the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC). He writes to say,

"We here at SSC are growing faster than we can find qualified and enthusiastic people to work here so I was wondering if maybe you know of some graduates who have excelled, preferably some experience but not always necessary, are looking for employment and are willing to work at SSC in sweden?

There are some postings online at www.ssc.se but there is also a need for people in similar fields, too, for example mechanical engineer (designing in CAD, FEM analysis, structure), software engineers, as well as system engineers. We are building up our electric propulsion department and may need some more people there. The same goes for our "green" propellant group, ECAPS."

China launches third manned space mission

China launched its third manned space flight today, carrying three astronauts on a 68-hour mission that will include the nation's first ever space walk, state TV reported.

The Shenzhou VII spacecraft lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China in the presence of President Hu Jintao and other senior leaders.

The head of the three-man crew, 41-year-old Zhai Zhigang, is scheduled to carry out a 30-minute space walk either Friday or more likely Saturday, earlier reports said.

Source: www.spacedaily.com

New Astro Students Land

The new academic year has kicked off. This week is Induction Week for all our new undergraduate students. Today I got to meet the new astro students on their own for the first time and started to get to know them. They are a good group with an impressive range of skills and abilities. I look forward to seeing them develop into fully-fledged space engineers over the next few years. The only way is up!