ESA Summer School Will Navigate Students through Satnav World

ESA International Summer School on GNSS 2013 will take place this year in Davos, Switzerland, July 15-25, 2013, at the Schatzalp Snow & Mountain Resort.

Satellite navigation technology is changing all our lives — and here is your chance to gain an expert overview. This summer’s Navigation Summer School, hosted by the Swiss Space Office and the Swiss Space Center in Davos, Switzerland, will bring together top experts in the field with graduate students and young professionals. Registration is now open.

Activities equivalent to 6-7 percent of European GDP already depend on satnav services, equivalent to €800 billion in value, and Europe’s own Galileo system is anticipated to further boost satnav’s economic impact. The first four Galileo satellites are operational in orbit, with initial navigation services projected to begin at the end of next year.

But how does satellite navigation work in practice? July’s two-week International Navigation Summer School aims to give participants a comprehensive theoretical and practical overview of the field, from the basics of GNSS to signal reception and processing to determine the position-navigation-time solution.

The program is open to graduate students (with a first university degree), Ph.D. candidates, early-stage researchers and young professionals wishing to broaden their knowledge.

Lectures by internationally renowned specialists will be combined with practical exercises and lab work. Principles of project management, entrepreneurship and marketing will also be covered in detail, with the participants tasked to develop an innovation-based group project over the course of the event.
Pascal Rochat of Spectratime, CEO of the Swiss company that designed the atomic clocks at the heart of Galileo, will give the inaugural lecture.

ESA’s International GNSS Navigation Summer School takes place in cooperation with the Joint Research Center, EC, in Ispra, Stanford University,  the Institut Supérieur de l’Aeronautique et de l’Espace in Toulouse, Graz University of Technology and University FAF Munich, with the support of the Swiss Space Office and the Swiss Space Center.

For more information, and to apply to take part, see the Summer School website.