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EPFL MINOR IN SPACE TECHNOLOGIES
Introduction:
In order to foster and promote the awareness of space technologies and applications among students, EPFL has recently decided to create a Minor in space technologies hosted by the Electrical Engineering and Electronics Section (SEL) but open to all the EPFL student community.
A flyer describing the minor is now available in PDF format.
At the beginning of each academic year, a presentation of the Minor is made to the students. The last one took place on 18 September 2009 and may be downloaded in PDF format.
Update for the academic year 2009/2010:
- Unfortunately the course “Aerodynamique” given by P. Leyland had to be cancelled in the last minutes for the 2009-2010 academic year. It is likely to be given again in the Autumn 2010 semester.
- The number of credits for the project in space technology has been increased from 8 to 12 ETCS.
- A new course entitled "Introduction to planetary science" will be given in the spring semester (i.e. starting in Sept. 2009).
- A new course entitled "Technique de navigation" will be given by Dr. Jan Skaloud
- The course, called before "Techniques et opérations spatiales" given by professor Claude Nicollier is now entitled "Space mission design and operations" and will be taught in English during the spring semester.
- The course "Localistation par satellites" given by Dr. Gillérion is shifted from the block "Space courses" to "Additional courses"
- As usual, the courses "Spacecraft on-board data handling, processing and interfaces" by B. Storni and "Lessons learned from the space exploration" by M. Toussaint will be given at the same time every other weeks during the spring semester (i.e. 4 hours of one course during one week and 4 hours of the other course during the following week).
Goals:
The Minor in Space Technologies shall enable students to obtain a solid understanding of space-related matters. The main goals are:
- To offer students the possibility to strengthen their knowledge in the space domain
- To promote space applications, technology and science based on the large interest raised by space
- To foster a strong teaching in the space sector in parallel to the development of academic and research projects at EPFL (e.g. SwissCube)
- To teach new lectures and adapt existing courses to include a space component
Rules:
The official rules for the Minor may be browsed in the following PDF document. The main points are however listed below:
- The Minor may be taken by all the STI students (EL, MX, MT, GM) and the students from the Physics Section (PH).
- Students from other sections are more than welcome but prior authorisation from their Sections should be obtained.
- The Minor is only open to Master students who have selected a Master programme with 90 ETCS (European Credit Transfer System)
- A minimum of 30 extra ETCS are necessary to obtain the Minor, usually corresponding to one extra semester of study
- All the requirements for the Minor should be completed before the student starts his/her Master thesis (usually in the 4th semester of his/her Master studies)
- Only one Minor may be selected by each student
- The student's choice to select the Minor should be announced no later than two weeks after the beginning of the first semester of his/her Master studies
- The student's choice should be confirmed before the end of the first semester of his/her Master studies
- A student is allowed to give up a Minor after being enrolled. However, in order to obtain his/her Master degree, the student will still have to satisfy the rules relative to the Master diploma determined by the "ordonnance du Contrôle des etudes" as well as those applicable to his/her section. In addition, the credits (ETCS) earned in the frame of the Minor may be transferred to the necessary requirements to earn the Master degree as long as the student's Section allows for it. The credits earned in the frame of the Minor which are not valid for the requirements to earn the Master degree will be lost.
Requirements:
In order to obtain the Minor, a student will have to get at least 30 ETCS (European Credit Transfer System) made out of:
- at least 18 ETCS for courses (to be selected out of a list of 62 ETCS)
- 12 ETCS for a project
It should be noted that the classes taken by a student in the frame of the Minor are considered as a "group". Hence the student has to obtain a mark of at least 4.0 for each of them.
List of courses:
A list of all the courses offered in the frame of the Minor may be browsed in PDF format and is also shown in the table below. By clicking on the name of the lecture, the corresponding course syllabus will be shown. The last column indicates the schedule since most of the lectures will have a weekly repetition cycle (2 hours/week) but a few will be given only biweekly (4 hours every other week) in order to fit the schedule of the external lecturers. The students will have to choose among a list of courses which are strongly encouraged due to the fact they are entirely dedicated to space (shown in red in the table below) and a list of existing EPFL courses which will be slightly adapted to emphasise some space aspects (shown in green below). This means that at least lectures yielding a total of 18 ETCS would have to be selected among all the lectures proposed (both red and green in the table corresponding to 51 ETCS).
Project:
Each student planning to take the Minor will have to select a project equivalent to 12 ETCS. A list of topics will be made available by the Space Center EPFL at the beginning of the term or could be proposed by a lab (as long as the project is space related). Once the title of the project has been selected and agreed with the person in charge of the project, an enrolment form has to be filled, signed, and submitted to Mrs. Suzanne Buffat,  ELB-110.
Enrolment procedure:
In order to register for the Minor in Space Technologies, the following steps must be undertaken:
- The student discussed with the director of the Space Center EPFL, Dr. Maurice Borgeaud, ELD-012, the list of classes he/she plans to take in the frame of the minor as well as a potential project to fulfil the requirement of the 12 credits
- Based on the discussion, the student lists all the courses he/she plans to take in order to obtain the 18 credits. A copy of this list is forwarded to the Space Center EPFL
- The student registers with IS-Academia the classes he/she takes to follow
- The student announces his/her decision to follow the Minor in Space Technologies to the secretariat of the Electrical and Electronics Engineering section (Mrs. Suzanne Buffat, in ELB-110). To do this, the following registration form has to be filled, signed, and handed over to Mrs. Suzanne Buffat, in ELB-110
Point of contact:
Further information about the Minor can be obtained from:
A =Autumn , S = Spring
1 semester containts 14 weeks.
PS: By clicking on the title, the description of the course will be shown.
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