New-Tech Europe | February 2019

- each supported by their professors – are developing modules such as a greenhouse to grow food or an oxygen generator for life support. These 18 student projects shape together a human habitat in ice, which will be constructed and tested in a field campaign in Zer matt, Switzerland in June 2019. The teams Students apply their knowledge to solve a technological challenge, increasing in parallel the maturity of technologies relevant to the space domain. The following universities are implied in IGLUNA: ■ École Polytechnique de Lausanne EPFL, Switzerland ■ Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich ETHZ, Switzerland ■ University of Lausanne UNIL, Switzerland Elements to build IGLUNA 2 ■ Lucerne University of Applied Sciences HSLU, Switzerland ■ Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW, Switzerland ■ Politechnico di Milano, Italy ■ RWTH Aachen, Germany ■ Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia • Technical University of Crete, Greece ■ University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania ■ University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom ■ Warsaw University of Technology, Poland ■ VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands The student teams met at ETH Zürich from 12-14 September 2018 for the IGLUNA kick-off event to mark the start of the student projects. During the event, the students got to know each other, worked together, learned about design thinking tools, developed their project descriptions and requirements, and presented their projects. Field Campaign The field campaign will take place at the Glacier Palace in Zermatt from 17-30 June 2019. During these two weeks, all the teams will meet, bring together their technologies, and present their demonstrators. Inside the glacier cave, the teams will build a 36m2 human habitat. The Glacier Palace will be open to the public, and visitors will have the opportunity to observe the experiments. IGLUNA, as a demonstrator pilot project, is aimed at supporting and accelerating the ESA_Lab initiative. The lessons learned from IGLUNA will help for the implementation of future ESA_ Labs. The Swiss Space Center serves as coordinator for the events and main systems engineering activities. Author: Sarah Perrin – Mediacom & The Swiss Space Center

© 2019 EPFL

tasks. They are developing oxygen and electricity production processes; a mechanism to grow algae; a system to use urine to fertilize plants; exercise facilities; a laboratory; a communications and control system; inflatable living modules; a robot to dig paths into the ice – and more. “Wehavearchitects, biologists, computer scientists, geologists and engineers from all over Europe: it’s an extraordinarily multidisciplinary and multicultural project,” adds Benavides. “With this initiative, ESA’s goal is to encourage these young people to work together even though they live in different countries and study at different schools.” The project The nature of the project is to stimulate student education and exchange through an international, interdisciplinary, and collaborative project on the topic: “A Human Habitat in Ice: Demonstrating key enabling technologies for life support in frozen worlds”. The topics covered on the project go from the habitat conception and construction to life support systems, power management, communication and navigation, as well as human well-being and science. Within these topics, the teams

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