A NEW STEP INTO SPACE: RUSSIAN SCHOOLCHILDREN AT THE "SPACE LESSON"
On June 17 in the children's technological park "Quantorium" of Tomsk the final project lesson "Swarm of nanosatellites - Stage 3" took place in the framework of the project "Space Lesson", partly organized and initiated by the Tomsk State Pedagogical University.
The use of satellites is widespread all over the world: programs for launching telecommunication satellites, remote sensing satellites and others are being implemented. Engineers and workers create the latest satellite systems. Russia's advanced universities and space industry enterprises face an important task: to create a swarm of small space satellites that can interact with each other and together solve assigned tasks. The participants of "Space Lessons" - students from Omsk and Tomsk and "Unicom" center from Kemerovo - took part in the target-oriented work on the creation of unique spacecraft. For the first time, a team from the Moscow State Education Complex was represented among the teams, where the schoolchildren get professional education in modern professions.
The host of the "Space Lesson" was Egor Butsenko, a senior lecturer at the Department of Chemistry and Methods of Teaching Chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry at the Tomsk State Pedagogical University:
"Any project work contributes to the development of both personal and professional abilities of schoolchildren: expansion of the outlook, skills of self-presentation and teamwork. In terms of career guidance the participants of such lessons can immediately understand if they want to tie their life with the study of space or not".
At each of Spacelesson's sites around Russia experts were presented: in Kemerovo - Elena Alekseevna Pakhomova, Deputy Chairman of the Kuzbass Government for Education and Science; in Moscow - pilot-cosmonaut, Hero of Russia Alexander Kaleri and Anton Pozharnitsky, engineer of the laboratory of innovative solutions for creating products of the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia named after S.P. Korolev; The Omsk site interacted with Pavel Stepen, a specialist in spacecraft engines, an employee of aviation and rocketry at the Omsk State Technical University. An expert from the TPU Vasily Fedorov, head of the mechanical engineering department and a professional in the design and creation of small spacecraft oversaw the work in Tomsk.
During the main part of the lesson, four teams presented the results of their project work on creating swarming satellites. At the last lesson on the 27th of October the participants got the basic steps of the design process: the first step was to get the initial data for the small spacecraft design, the second step was to determine the composition of the satellite, design its future 3D-model and the third step was to start the process of the MCA production technology creation. Tomsk scientists presented a model of the satellite and proposed options for its service systems and payloads.
The lesson experts discussed the results obtained by the teams in the course of their work and outlined the next steps:
"There is not much time left before the launch. After receiving a working prototype, tests are to begin: both autonomous and comprehensive. Their main goal is to confirm the performance of the satellite in space conditions and to confirm its characteristics", — said specialists in Tomsk.
Participants were also able to talk to the crew members of the Russian segment of the ISS Petr Dubrov and Oleg Novitsky on the topic of the lesson, ask questions relating to the nanosatellite swarm, as well as life and work of astronauts on the International Space Station: what tools astronauts need on the ISS, about conducting experiments onboard the station, about the astronauts on Earth training for work on the station.
The participants of all four teams did a tremendous amount of work to create small spacecraft: mockups of future satellites are ready. Tests that will show their effectiveness. There is even a chance that the satellites made by the students will get into space and bring mankind closer to its understanding and knowledge. The launch of a swarm of small space satellites into orbit is scheduled for 2022-2023.
The Space Lesson project has been implemented in Tomsk since 2017. Its organizers are Roscosmos and Rocket and Space Corporation Energia together with the Tomsk State Pedagogical University, the TPU, and the Tomsk State Television and Radio Company.