SPACE::LAB teaches how to understand the universe

“We have more than half a century of a tradition in space research and engineering. Nevertheless, the general awareness of these activities especially among the younger generation is very low,” This is how astrophysicist RNDr. Šimon Mackovjak, PhD. assessed the situation year and a half after he joined the Department of Space Physics at Institute of Experimental Physics SAS. He then came with an idea how to change it and established the SPACE::LAB project. And he was successful. In June he received the SAS award for the popularization of science.

“I realized, that future of the Department of Space Physics and its participation on future space projects relies mainly on involvement of young and talented people,” says Šimon Mackovjak. He himself was – and still is – the youngest member of the department. He decided to take advantage of his deep and – by graduating from the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of the Comenius University in Bratislava – professional interest in space to “infect” his peers.

He did it using the project SPACE::LAB, which he proposed at the end of 2017. “I set a sequence of goals – at first, to engage young generation with a passion for space, then to establish a platform where the scientists could educate young people in their laboratories and in the end to engage the best students to real scientific and engineering experiments,” he explains his original plans. European Space Agency (ESA) selected his project and supports it via the educational activities of the program PECS (Plan for European Cooperating States), financed by the government of the Slovak Republic.

Nevertheless – successful realization of the project can be accomplished only when it comes from real life. Young project coordinator is familiar with customs and requirements of his generation and he knew that the path to success leads through the interest and communication through social medias. “Košice gave us perfect background. There are plenty of high school students successful at various home and international competitions regarding natural sciences, large universities with tradition and a lot of IT companies. If the communication with public is managed well, then it will be possible to work on our project activities,” says Šimon Mackovjak. He created web-page of the project so those interested in space research and engineering can have a source of information. Activities of the SPACE::TALK project include a regular meetings with lecture on the first Thursday of the month (excluding holidays). Ten of those lectures were held last year. The first belonged to space engineer – designer Ing. Ján Baláž, PhD., who participated in the construction of the equipment for space missions, such as Rossetta (first probe to successfully land on the surface of comet), BepiColombo, which heads toward Mercury, and currently JUICE with final goal on Jupiter. Top-expert, member-correspondent of The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) set the bar for the participants high, but thanks to following lecturers it has been possible to maintain the level of attractiveness and expertise of the lectures.

SPACE::LAB summer school is another part of the project, serving the intensive education purposes. Last year’s summer school on the topic of “Machine learning and Space data” was prepared by academics in cooperation with IT company GlobalLogic. 20 participants had the opportunity to discover latest trends in the use of IT technologies for space research.

Third activity was SPACE::PROJECT – competition for students of high schools and universities, who had to design their own project for better understanding of the universe. Winners were given the possibility of a paid monthly internship under the guidance of the mentors from the Department of Space Physics at Institute of Experimental Physics SAS. Last summer it was attended by four students. One of them was Samuel Amrich from Košice, a multiple successful participant of the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA). “Samuel, who is already a university student of maths and physics in Prague, will join us again. In August, thanks to another research project he will spend one month internship at our department. I am very glad that we can collaborate, he is very talented,” says Šimon Mackovjak.

An interesting and beneficial project SPACE::LAB went smoothly, even the representatives of the ESA who came for inspection in June and December 2019 were satisfied, and recommended continuing it in 2020. However, due to spread of COVID-19 and related restrictions the project had to be put on hold. What did this mean for the project team? “Luckily, the benefits of online communication have been demonstrated” says the head coordinator of the project. “We had to postpone our lectures but the remaining goals of the project were continuously fulfilled. Students could again send their projects, top three are currently on the internship at our department. Until the end of July it is possible to send applications for the summer school, which will be organized on the topic Develop your own Virtual Observatory. This time we want to use modern IT approaches for data collection and storage using the Python microservices, their automatic processing using the Machine learning as well as their presentation via web application. The participants will be able to develop their own virtual observatory thanks to a complete end-to-end solution. The capacity of 16 people is almost full.”

SPACE::TALK meetups will resume in autumn on September 3, 2020, when doc. RNDr. Pavol Valko, CSc., member of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, STU Bratislava will introduce the topic Science and Space. The speakers have already been arranged for the remaining months of this year.

Project team has been worried for some time, that current spread of COVID-19 will make it impossible to organize first SPACE HACKATHON in Košice. This is the local round of the international ActInSpace competition, during which the teams have 24 hours to prepare solutions to the challenges given by ESA, CNES, AIRBUS and others. Organizers of this competition which can establish closer cooperation of the young scientists from the SAS institutes, universities and private sector, moved it on November 13-14, 2020.

At that time, the project is supposed to finish. Even today, however, the project team can be satisfied, that thanks to SPACE::LAB the interest of young people in understanding of the universe increases.

Original text: News at SAS
Author of the original text: Katarína Čižmáriková
Photo: Katarína Čižmáriková, Katarína Gáliková