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IGLUNA

PREVIOUS EDITIONS

IGLUNA 2020

The purpose of the IGLUNA 2020 mission was to demonstrate technologies for a space habitat that will sustain life in an extreme environment and to operate the novel technologies through a remote control mode.

Based on the heritage of IGLUNA 2019, this second edition enabled the increase of the projects readiness level. It also brought new actors and industrial partners together to promote innovative space technologies. The multidisciplinary nature of this edition covered a full range of topics, going from the habitat conception and construction to life support systems, communication and navigation, power management, as well as human well-being and science.

IGLUNA 2020 started in September 2019 with 15 teams of students from 10 European universities who developed their technology over two academic semesters. The final step would have been the Field Campaign demonstration at the VERKEHRSHAUS – Swiss Museum of Transport and on the Pilatus from the 10 to the 19 July 2020.

However, due to the Covid-19 crisis, the Field Campaign took place virtually, where all the student teams connected from their countries to present their projects and hard work to the rest of the world. The project shows and additional space experts presentations have been live-streamed and are now publicly available on YouTube.

In March 2020, the three most advanced teams have been selected to work on a lunar mission at ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility. They were reviewed by ESA’s system engineering experts in December 2020. The mission is named “SCALE” and gathers AMPEX, SAMPLE and Celestial technologies.

project teams

milestones

our board of experts

  • The IGLUNA initiative in a interesting exchange platform for young engineers and scientists. Its allow to study, trade-off and develop some concrete cases of life support, which most probably will become issues in the future.

    Christophe Lasseur
    Christophe Lasseur ESA / MELiSSA Foundation
  • It is a real pleasure being asked to act as a member of the expert board for team P09 and to contribute with my insights on prototyping and testing. As the Prototyping Troll at CERN IdeaSquare I will also have the great pleasure of meeting all the teams during the IGLUNA Mid-Term Review at CERN IdeaSquare.

    Hans Hagenes Boe
    Hans Hagenes Boe CERN
  • What is great with IGULNA is that students from all over the world participate in a common and interdisciplinary project. By their creativity, technical skills and capacity to think out of the box, they re-invent and develop what could be a sustainable life in a space habitat.

    Maude Marechal
    Maude Marechal ESA
  • I think that IGLUNA is a great project for students to get an idea on what really would be to run their experiments on another planet: tight time constraints, in a cave with no sunlight, below meters of ice, freezing cold... probably on Mars would be easier!

    Marco Volponi
    Marco Volponi ESA / MELiSSA Foundation
  • The IGLUNA is an exciting opportunity for students interested in space exploration. In this truly international, interdisciplinary, and collaborative project, the participants can present and test their solutions to some of the real challenges of the space missions.

    Klara Anna Capova
    Klara Anna Capova ESA

sponsors & partners

IGLUNA 2019

The first ESA_Lab Demonstrator Project IGLUNA offered students opportunities to participate in an international, collaborative project on a visionary space topic: A Habitat in Ice.

In one year, 20 student teams from various disciplines gathered their knowledge to design a habitat potentially suitable for an extreme environment, such as the Moon.

More than 150 students from 9 European countries designed their prototypes during the autumn semester 2018 and built their modules in the spring semester 2019. From the 17th of June until the full disassembly on the 3rd of July, the results came together during a Field Campaign inside the glacier cave of the Klein Matterhorn and an exhibition in the village of Zermatt, Switzerland.

project teams

milestones

sponsors & partners

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