ESA Young Graduate Trainee Vedant Paul inspecting the Young Professionals Satellite on a shaker table for vibration testing at the Agency’s Mechanical Systems Laboratory. The two cameras seen at the top of this 50-cm tall payload will capture imagery of Europe’s inaugural Ariane 6 flight from the inside.

When ESA announced the opportunity to propose payloads for the first Ariane 6 flight, ESA Young Professionals came together to design a mission mounted to the payload platform that would image the fairing separation and deployment of satellites from the launcher, as well as return views from orbit.

A core team of about 30 Young Professionals from across the Agency’s Establishments, Directorates and disciplines has been working in its spare time to design, build and test the Young Professionals Satellite, YPSat for short, with advice coming from experts in ESA’s Directorates of Technology Engineering and Quality, Operations and Space Transportation Systems.

“Along with returning unique imagery from a historic flight, YPSat will also gather magnetic data along Ariane 6’s trajectory.” comments Young Graduate Trainee Julien Krompholtz, leading the YPSat effort. “Combining mission development with our everyday work is not easy, but it is an opportunity to build additional skills alongside our projects. Creating and developing a spacecraft that we ourselves have directly initiated all the way into space is an amazing opportunity.”

Find out more on the new ESA Young Professionals Satellites website.