"Fly a Rocket!" Travelogue
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THE PROJECT
CONCEPT
The "Fly a rocket!" is a novelty in the projects for students that ESA organizes annually, its goal is to provide to students at the beginning of their academic career with a interest in space the possibility to take part in the launch campaign of a rocket at the Andøya Space Center located in a Northern island of Norway.
Students who have been selected, 20 in total, come from the ESA members states, during the period that fits between October 2016 and early February 2017 they took part in an online course to prepare them for the launch campaign that will take place in late March 2017 (from 26 March to 1 April). The project comes from an ESA Academy Initiative In collaboration with the Narom (Norwegian Centre for Education in Space field) and the Norwegian Space Centre (Norsk Romsenter) |
The Andøya Space Center
The Andøya space center located on the Andøya island in the archipelago of Vesterålen (just north of the Arctic Polar Circle). It is a Norwegian spaceport that, since 1962, has launched more than 1,200 sounding rocket for various agencies (among the most important NASA, ESA and JAXA). The main activities of this structure are the launch of sounding rockets and balloons.
A curiosity related to this space center is the so-called "Norvegian Rocket Incident", in fact, at the end of the Cold War, a rocket launched from this location was mistaken by the Russians for a nuclear attack, fortunately the radar controller recognized that the missile was not directed towards Russia. The center will house the entire campaign of "Fly a Rocket!" allowing us to take part in not only the assembly and launch but also in all the preparations and management of the launch itself.. |