Closing day of the 19th Student Aerospace Challenge
On June 5, 2025, the European Space Agency (Esa), the European Astronaut Club (ACE), ArianeGroup, Dassault Aviation and the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace organized the closing day of the 19th Student Aerospace Challenge at the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace in Le Bourget (93).
This competition enabled higher education students to take part in the study of a reusable, manned suborbital or even orbital vehicle, on a theme chosen from among the ten work packages on offer (technical, medical, legal studies, etc.).
For this year’s event, 21 teams from schools and universities in several European countries belonging to the European Space Agency (Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, etc.) took up the challenge. This record number demonstrates the international reputation of this student competition.
The “Astro-Spaceship” team from ISAE – SupAéro won the Dassault Aviation prize for the design of its OSIRIS space shuttle, capable of several types of mission in low-Earth orbit.
Englishman John McFall spoke at the meeting, explaining the selection process that led him to become the European Space Agency’s first parastronaut candidate in November 2022. He also spoke about the training he underwent to obtain medical certification for a long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station. He is currently part of Esa’s reserve astronaut group.
Awards for the 19th financial year
The ESA Grand Prix was awarded to the “SPHERE” team (Université libre de Bruxelles – Brussels, Belgium) for the design of a portable, non-invasive device for cardiac evaluation and regulation;
The ArianeGroup Prize was awarded to the “Orbit WUT” team (Warsaw University of Technology – Warsaw, Poland) for its work on the preliminary design of an attitude control system;
The Dassault Aviation Prize was awarded to the “Astro-Spaceship” team (ISAE Supaéro – Toulouse, France) for the design of its OSIRIS space shuttle, capable of several types of mission in low earth orbit;
The Communication Prize, sponsored by ACE and awarded for the best poster, went to the “PoliTOrbital – Medical Aspects” team (Politecnico di Torino – Turin, Italy) for their work on the design of a lightweight, low-power system for in-orbit sleep monitoring.
