Winter School Class of 2017

  • Released Monday, June 5, 2017
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Participants in the 2017 Planetary Science Winter School discuss what it takes to go from science concept to engineering reality. Complete transcript available.

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Music provided by Killer Tracks:
"Nature Exploration" – Laurent Dury
"On the Plate" – Daniel Pemberton

Each year in early March, a new class of postdocs at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center gathers for the Planetary Science Winter School. This intensive training program takes the young scientists and plunges them into the Instrument Design Lab, to see first-hand what it takes to pitch an instrument that could one day fly in space.



The goal of the Winter School is to design and submit a real proposal for an instrument that will gather scientific data at another planet. As the students learn, however, it's not enough just to ask questions of scientific interest – their proposal must also meet strict engineering constraints on the instrument's mass, power, volume, and even budget. Veteran engineers from the Instrument Design Lab mentor the students throughout the weeklong course, helping to school them in the real-world challenges of planetary science.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Monday, June 5, 2017.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:47 PM EDT.

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