10 YEARS OF STUDENT PARABOLIC FLIGHT CAMPAIGNS (SPFC): RETURN ON INVESTMENT OF THE PROJECT WITH TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE RESULTS

摘要

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Student Parabolic Flight Campaign has just blown out its tenth candle. Since 1994, many European students have been given the unique opportunity by ESA to test their projects and ideas in microgravity conditions, first on board the Caravelle and then the Airbus A300-0g. It is certainly an incredible adventure scientifically as well as personally, but what happens afterwards? After a short introduction to this ESA programme, this paper presents the results of investigations into some illustrative examples of participating students and exposes their careers and achievements. The second part of this paper focuses on the public outreach of the past ten years of campaigns. How have the European countries been touched by the students' Parabolic Flight Campaigns? Through which type of media (radio, TV, written press)? How many students were reached? In which disciplines? This enquiry highlights the impact of all the communication around the event and will help to increase the familiarity of the SPFCs for the coming years.