The PWr Innspace student team has taken part in two international space competitions in one week. First, our students won ActInSpace hackathon and then received one of the main prizes in the prestigious Student Aerospace Challenge.

On November 13 and 14, the Innspace team, composed of Justyna Pelc, Hubert Gross, Magdalena Łabowska, Milena Michalska, and Arkadiusz Kołodziej, participated in the German ActInSpace hackathon final. This international space competition is held in dozens of countries simultaneously.

In the competition, teams have 24 hours to prepare a solution to one of a few dozen problems reported by space companies. Our students and doctoral students tackled the subject of using data collected by cars. Named Demeter, their project was to use it in conjunction with satellite data and other databases in agriculture.

– As far cars and our environment go, what automatically occurs to you is the negative impact of vehicles – says Innspace member Magdalena Łabowska. – However, we’re not in a position to give up on cars, and the considerable traffic can also be used to our advantage. Today's vehicles collect a big amount of environmental data, and it is this data that can be used to create a model that anticipates crop growth. This could make food production more efficient – says Magdalena Łabowska.

Thanks to the win, Innspace will enter the international finals of the hackathon in France, where one of the prizes is a parabolic ZeroG flight.

A prize year after year

A few days later, the WUST team repeated its last year’s success and once again did well in the finals of the prestigious Student Aerospace Challenge,  an annual competition dedicated to suborbital flights, attracting students from the European Space Agency (ESA) member countries. is organised by the Astronaute Club Européen (ACE), a French association promoting space tourism.

Each of the competing teams had to develop one issue out of ten problems proposed by the organisers. This time, the Innspace team, comprising Justyna Pelc, Małgorzata Popiel, Magdalena Łabowska, Piotr Torchała, and Beata Suścicka, decided to analyse the suborbital passenger flight market. It took them several months, and the Polish Space Agency took patronage of the project.

– We conducted research on a group of almost 300 people from over 25 countries, and the results were used to draw up recommendations – says Justyna Pelc, leader of the Innspace team. – We wanted to explore not only the space tourism market but also the potential of suborbital flights as a means of intercontinental transport.

The result of this research was recognised by the jury, which again appreciated WUST students and doctoral students by awarding them one of the three awards – the ArianeGroup Prize.

Innspace is a group of WUST students and doctoral students focusing on subjects related to space. Its members are architects, construction designers, robotics specialists, and programmers. Their cooperation resulted in numerous successes, e.g. first prize in the Parisian Student Aerospace Challenge 2019 competition and fifth place in the prestigious American Mars Colony Prize 2019.