On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the (Aero)space Study Association ‘Leonardo da Vinci’, the ‘Da Vinci Satellite’ project has the mission to design, build and launch a satellite with corresponding educational programme. This satellite will provide a direct connection to space for primary and high school students. Their launch, with ISISpace at the SpaceX launchpad in Florida, is set in October 2023. In our next Network & Drinks they will present their initiative. They are looking for different kinds of support to realise their launch later this year and you can also get in touch with them about their educational programme.
About the Da Vinci Satellite Project
The Da Vinci Satellite project is an initiative started by a non-profit student team of Delft University of Technology, with the goal: ‘To inspire and enthuse the youth of the Netherlands for technology and spaceflight, while emphasizing the impact of spaceflight on our society’.
In order to achieve this, the Da Vinci Satellite team intends to put a satellite in orbit around the Earth for educative purposes. The associated educational programme will offer many primary and high school students in the Netherlands the opportunity to come into contact with space travel.
Mission and Timeline of the Da Vinci Satellite
By means of a teaching package, all satellite data will be brought directly into the classroom to make space more tangible for the students. In this way, students of all ages will be able to learn about space and everything related to space in an interactive manner.
The current design is a two-unit cubesat, effectively the size of a milk carton. It has two separate payloads, one of which is the dice payload and the other is the bitflip payload. The initial design was made by ten students during their Design Synthesis Exercise in 2019, which is a ten-week graduation project for Aerospace Engineering Bachelor students. The current planning for launch is October 2023 with ISISpace as their launch provider.
Their vision
Space travel is indispensable in everyday life these days. It is of social importance that people understand what is happening to the Earth. By becoming acquainted with space travel from an early age, children can become inspired and motivated to discover the world. This may have to do with technology, global warming or sustainability.
With the ‘Da Vinci Satellite’, school children can interactively become acquainted with and learn about space and what is involved in it. Youth has the future, so it is important to create awareness. Together they elevate education to a higher level!
Support the project
To realise their mission, they are looking for funding, PR and marketing support. They have already raised 80% of their goal, but to get their education programme to the sky, they need to find the remaining funding before their last experiments in May.
If you want to know more about the initiative, the education programme, want to support them with funding and/or PR, or have ideas about collaborations, reach out to them through the contact details below and/or find them at our monthly NL Space Campus Network & Drinks!
About the Da Vinci Satellite Team
In order to realise this project, a team of over 50 students from various faculties at the TU Delft works together to develop the satellite and the corresponding educational modules. These teams (with the aid of many professional partners from both educational and technical entities) work their hardest in order to try to guarantee success of this project and are divided as follows:
Core team: The Core team is the group of students leading the Da Vinci Satellite project and are responsible for keeping an overview of the complete project. They are tasked with managing each of the subteams to guarantee all are able to collaborate effectively and are the first points of contact for each of their divisions.
Technical Team: The technical team is tasked with the complete design and construction of the satellite. The team works closely together with the engineering knowledge of the TU Delft as well as relevant players in the Dutch space industry. The team is further divided into six subteams, of which each is led by a chief engineer and the chief engineers are led by the technical manager of the core team.
Education Team: The education team is tasked with the development of the educative lesson programs for both primary and high school students that correspond to our satellite payloads. The primary school payload is a zero-gravity dice game where a mechanism is able to throw five dice in space and make a photo of the “thrown” values, connecting students with spaceflight in a playful manner. High school uses the bitflip payload, a memory module that practically shows the effects of radiation on computers in space. The students can experiment with this themselves by uploading their own images to the satellite and seeing them degrade over time. This helps them have a direct connection to space, making it a more tangible topic to discuss.
Business Team: In order to realise this project, our business team is tasked with ensuring we are able to financially complete this project through acquisition as well as remain in good contact with all our partners. In order to achieve this, the team is split up into two subteams: the finance team and the external relations team. They also work closely together with the treasurer of the core team.
Public Relations Team: The public relations team generates team visibility through active use of our social media, maintenance of the website and making all our physical promotion material and team merchandise. They are also tasked with ensuring our team can go to events and finding external media outlets to promote the team.
The current core team members are (from left to right):
Dominique Nieuwenhuizen – Public Relations Manager
Nora van den Heuvel – Secretary
Nikki Grens – Business Manager
Timo Burggraaf – Team Manager
Emre Halici – Treasurer
Michael Boutros – Technical Manager
Floor Bagchus – Education Manager
Contact Information
+31 (0)15 278 2418
Socials: @davincisatellite
