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all more recent articles can be found on the OEWF Blog: blog.oewf.org/en/
Announcement of Opportunity for the Rio Tinto Field Test in April 2011
Between 15.- 25. April 2011, the Austrian Space Forum and partnering institutions will conduct a set of field tests in the Spanish Rio Tinto area. The work will focus on the Aouda.X spacesuit simulator and astrobiology experiments w.r.t. the contamination vector analysis as well as the Phileas rover prototype. Geophysical investigations and operational tests bringing together the field team and its operations team-on-site (OPS), a dedicated Mission Control Center (MCC) as well as Remote Science Support (RSS) teams will complement this field mission.
more…Aouda.X gets a CT
You will only find out whats inside a space suit - real or simulated - if you look under its skin. This was the reason behind a cooperation between the Aouda.X development team and the University Clinic for Radiology at the medical University of Innsbruck and the TILAK (Tiroler Landeskrankenanstalten GmbH, the association of tyrolean county hospitals): to be able to see whats inside of our “indian princess”. With Martin Knoflach who works for both the Aouda.X development team and the TILAK it was only a question of time until this collaboration happened.
more…The Austrian Space Forum visits the Astronaut Centre in Cologne
ESA’s European Astronaut Center (EAC) was the goal of a visit by a PolAres delegation. It is the central piece of manned european space travel: since the early nineties, both astronauts training takes place here as well as operational care during missions is performed from the EAC. A report of this fascinating and productive visit.
more…Drilling into ice on "Mars"
On Saturday 31st July the CVE 04 series took place during the field test at the glacier in the Kaunertal Valley. This series was launched in reference to the CVE 03 that have been conducted during the last tests in Innsbruck in May 2010. The major idea was to track certain ways of contamination.
more…PolAres Aouda Spacesuit Simulator Glacier Test
A 19-people team members operating a spacesuit simulator? Yes, and each of them is necessary at an exceptional location for a Mars-analogue right in the heart of Europe - the Kaunertal glacier. Bright sunshine and high summer "Mars" temperature (ca. 8°C) at 2.750 sea level are the conditions for the PolAres team. Not only scientific equipment and experiments are present also Operations ("OPS", a kind of a mobile control centre), but also photographers and several press teams, making Ulrich Luger, one of the spacesuit testers feel like a top model. Meanwhile the experienced suit technician team helps the suit tester in the 45 kg suit - the donning activities last at least one hour.
more…Sun & Space: Board- meeting of the Austrian Space Forum in Rome
Sun, beach, sea and not to forget culture! Rome offers all of this. But not only because of this reason the board- meeting took place on June 26th in Italy. Alexander Soucek was host for this working meeting.
more…June 19th 2010: The balloon- launch in Graz of Passepartout V was successful.
During an activity in Graz, which took place on June 19th 2010, the passepartout- crew started the balloon, called Passepartout and let him fly to the upper spheres of our atmosphere, in memory of our friend and team- member Hannes “Capitano” Meyer. The crew and even the whole audience were fascinated by the altitude, the balloon reached. A new record of 115 567 feet was established!
more…SUMOST – "Sun, Moon and Stars" for Innsbruck's space children
In April and May the Young University Innsbruck Workshop for kids took place once again. It was professionally supported by the Austrian Space Forum. It started at the morning of April 19th at the nursery school “Dreiheiligen”, where astronomical aspects for all senses were brought closer to the kids, who already had some knowledge, taught by their nursery- school teacher.
Five stations included: A noise- station, where the fascinated kids could here some noise from space (“Great: The planets sound like my heart!”), a smell station, where you could smell some smell- imitations from different planets and a planetary nebula. (“I wouldn’t like to live there: It stinks!” “Everything smells somehow.” “I can’t get this ugly smell out of my mind!”), a show- jumping course, where the kids could control the ASF- Dignity Rover and a crater- station, where the kids could shoot into some powder. (“There I could create big and small craters” “When I shot firmly, a huge crater arose!”) Astronomy for all senses! At every station the kids got drawn a symbol onto their astronaut- card, which they could take home proudly.
more…Aouda.X field test Innsbruck
Day 1: Preparations for experiments with sand and ice
The sun is sneaking through some clouds, workshop team members are eating their breakfast while project leader Gernot Groemer is opening the morning briefing. All activities for the day are discussed and the team members are starting with their assigned tasks.
more…Phileas: A mars rovers first “steps”
We can smell sweat and hot metal when we enter the workshop. The sound strengthens the impression we get from the smell: Obviously, somebody works pretty hard in here!
more…Preparations for the Aouda-Phileas Labtest
From the 21st to the 24th of May the next field test for the spacesuit simulator Aouda.X will take place. This time a piece of Phileas Rover hardware will most likely be a part of the test, for the first time! "The goal is the full integration of the electronic-hardware with the option, to test the air-condition and thermal element directly from the mission control centre." explains Dipl. Phys. Klaus Bickert from the team. "Our preparations will also enable the usage of the consisting power distribution, which means that even with bigger problems on this side, everything can be operated mechanically."
more…Cavemen on Mars? – Aouda.X test in the Koppenbrüller cave at Obertraun
Some of the first documents of human history are paintings found in caves, like in the Spanish Altamira cave. Those paintings date back to 30 000 years! So what does this fact have to do with OEWF space suit simulator Aouda.X? Easy: quite possibly, the first humans on Mars will not live on the surface, but start by building an infrastructure below the surface. This has been shown by recent study done by participants of the International Space University at the NASA Ames Research Center, where Forum member Olivia Haider was involved (ACCESS-Report 2009).
more…Dusty or motivated? What did the OEWF in 2009?
2009, being the eleventh year since the foundation of the Austrian Space Forum, primarily saw great advances in the PolAres programme amongst many other projects and incentives. Lectures in schools, at exhibitions or educational programmes for children have reached an unrivalled high. Aside from these successful public events and the research and development of the ASF, a subtle change in the internal structures of the forum was undertaken, with the goal to make the ASF a more effective organization. This change was the consolidation of the service-units like the newsgroup in order to facilitate publications and the day-to-day business involving the creation of the ever growing newsletter. This also involved the effective incorporation of social media tools for the first time.
more…Phileas Rover: Drivetrain and Structure
After the HTL Salzburg has developed the energysystems of the Phileas PolAres rover, Florian Ehrenreich, Kevin Gassner and Markus Herz – all three are students of the speciality machinery/automatisation - start their diploma work.
more…Houston, we've had a problem. We've dust everywhere!
"Who doesn’t envision to one day be walking on Mars? The troubles involved in getting and staying there should by then hopefully be greatly mitigated. One of the unsolved problems that we would currently encounter on Mars is dust. The Martian dust is highly adhesive to any surface through electrostatic processes – that is, charged micro-particles connecting to a material, such as a spacesuit. Martian dust has the potential to crucially abrade surfaces and threaten human health. Moreover, it is intensely sticky.
more…Internship opportunity at the Austrian Space Forum Innsbruck, February 2010
The Austrian Space Forums‘ Innsbruck Office is offering an internship position in February 2010 to prepare for the implementation of a Landing Radar System in the framework of the PolAres Passepartout Balloon. The job encompasses the coordination with external partners in the Netherlands, also w.r.t. a potential application for the Google Lunar X Prize.
more…Eifel Planetary Exploration Field 2009 with European Space Agency
"Declaring Ground Safe"
Ein karges Gebiet mit Tephra It's a barren field with volcanic tephra, a reddish powdery dust covers the soil and a steep wall rises just in front of the site: This is not Mars, nor the Moon, but it might turn out to be one of the places where scientists and engineers of the European Space Agency and teams from AOES, TNO, French Air Force and the Austrian Space Forum place one of the many steps towards other planets. The Wingertsbergwand in Western Germany is the place to be for a series of field tests doing robotic as well as human exploration. more…5. Aouda Workshop Katsdorf
Since the prototype of the Aouda spacesuit simulator had been tested several times in the last few weeks, many ideas for optimization have arisen – hence, the suit team met from 6th to 8th of November in Katsdorf (Upper Austria) to further the evolution of the prototype and to come up with new ideas.
more…"Space Adventure" in the Planetarium of Vienna Report from the World Space Week 2009
During the UN World Space Week the Austrian Space Forum was charged with the the organisation of a "Space Adventure" in the Planetarium of Vienna by the Office for Space Affairs of the United nations. About 300 visitors experienced on the 4th of October space travel in a wide mix of talks, hands on experiences and a real Astronaut.
more…
PolAres Schedule Update
After Rio Tinto in April 2011 this will be the first field test after upgrading the Aouda.X space suit simulator. Proposed location: Dachstein cave systems (upper Austria)
