This year’s ESA Open Day at ESTEC in the Netherlands is taking place on an online basis. Continuing COVID-19 restrictions make it impossible to let people on-site in person, but participants will still enjoy virtual tours of the extensive establishment, get unique close-up views of space hardware and interact directly with astronauts and space experts.
This will be the ninth annual ESA Open Day at ESTEC, taking place on Sunday 4 October, and will be open to participants from across Europe and the world.
“The Open Day has become an annual highlight, and we regret not being able to welcome people into ESTEC this year,” comments Franco Ongaro, head of ESTEC and ESA’s Director of Technology, Engineering, and Quality.
“Instead we will use technology to make people feel like they are right with us on site. We have adapted to the situation as best we can, and our work has resumed its usual pace, so we have lots of exciting activities to share with the wider public.”
Participants will sign in to a virtual auditorium, then be free to choose which ‘rooms’ they attend. Many of the most popular highlights of previous years will be on offer, including space careers talks from ESA Human Resources, details of ESA Education’s work with school and university students, and Space Story Tellers giving new perspectives on space and society.
The Netherlands Space Office will present the work done by Dutch companies and researchers in the space sector. Participants can also go on a virtual backstage tour of the ESTEC Test Centre, which is specially equipped to check space missions that are ready to fly into orbit. Guest astronauts will give talks and field questions – full details of the guest list will come later this month.
The ESA Open Day at ESTEC 2020 will have the theme of ‘ESA and the Environment’. Space professionals know the importance of sustainability: the finite resources of a space mission must be managed carefully to keep it running. The same is true down here on spaceship Earth.
The virtual Open Day will focus on the many ways space is safeguarding the environment, through satellite-based Earth observation for environmental monitoring, as well as recycling technologies developed for astronauts in space habitats then applied to daily life.
The efforts made to operate ESTEC and other ESA establishments in an environmentally friendly manner will also be highlighted – because we all live on the same blue planet.
There will be an official registration for the online element of the Open Day, with a single ticket per household.
Source: ESA
