Review Team | Regional Coordinators

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Introduction to the Mission Idea Contest

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The Mission Idea Contest (MIC) was established in 2010 to provide aerospace engineers, college students, consultants, and anybody interested in space with opportunities to present their creative ideas and gain attention internationally. The primary goal of MICs is to open a door to a new facet of space exploration and exploitation.

Development of micro/nano-satellites started as an educational and research program primarily at university laboratories. As the micro/nano-satellite technology matures, it has spread rapidly across the academics and industry for practical application.

Scope

The MIC6 offers aerospace engineers, scientists, college students, consultants, and anybody interested in space with opportunities to present their creative ideas on payload for ISS platform and gain attention internationally. The primary goal of MIC is to open a door to a new facet of space exploration and research & technologies.

Recently opportunities opened up to all to regularly and rapidly fly payloads (from 1U upwards) to the International Space Station (ISS), the permanently inhabited location other than Earth and our stepping stone to exploration of the moon, Mars and beyond. This way access for the performance of research, the development and test of technology and the manufacturing of innovative products in low Earth orbit is becoming a reality.

On-board of the International Space Station, research can be done, and technologies can be testing making use of the unique features of microgravity and radiation. Applied research making use of the microgravity value features allows for significant relevance for terrestrial benefits and allows the research to also contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

MIC6 is organized in cooperation with ICE Cubes and JAXA (a company selected by JAXA after March 2019) to utilize the ISS experiment modules, Columbus and Kibo.

Requirements

Please propose an innovative experiment idea which:

• either contributes to earth benefits or contributes to human space exploration
• contributes to any of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Other requirements:

• Research or technology idea for the pressurized internal of the international space station for which microgravity or radiation aspects of this space environment are mandatorily required.
• The experiment can be performed
  A) inside of ISS - ICE Cubes facility on ESA Columbus module or
  B) outside of ISS - iSEEP facility on JAXA Kibo module
  
  See below for more details.
  
  A) in the ICE Cubes facility installed in ESA’s Columbus module: www.icecubesservice.com Payload of dimension of between 1U (10*10*10cm) and 3U*4U (30*40*10cm). More information
  
  B) in the iSEEP facility in JAXA’s Kibo module: http://iss.jaxa.jp/en/kiboexp/ef/i-seep/ Payload of dimension of between 1U (10*10*10cm) and 3U (30*30*10cm). More information

Schedule

• Call for paper: February 8, 2019
• Abstract submission due: August 8, 2019
• Notification: September 9, 2019
• Full Paper submission due: October 10, 2019
• Final presentation: during 7th UNISEC-Global Meeting (Venue: TBD in Japan. Dates: TBD-Nov 2019)

Evaluation Criteria

• Originality (50 points)
  • Novel concept not yet realized or proposed, or a new implementation of an existing capability or service (25)
  • Impact on society / Sustainable Development Goals / human spaceflight exploration (25)
• Feasibility (50 points)
  • Technical (20)
  • Programmatic (cost estimate, development schedule, infrastructure requirements) (15)
  • Operational (protocol, communication and interaction during experiment) (15)

Reasons for participation

• Finalists will be given an opportunity to make a final presentation in front of international reviewers during 7th UNISEC-Global Meeting in Tokyo in Nov-2019.
• Awards:
  • 1st place:
    • Certificate
    • (A) ICE Cubes:
      • 25% discount on a 1U cube of 1 kg for 4 months operations for a launch within 2 years from award and
      • A visit to the ICE Cubes control centre / clean room and the European Astronaut Centre or Monetary award (500 Euro)
    • (B) iSEEP: To be announced
  • 2nd place:
    • Certificate
    • (A)ICE Cubes:
      • 15% discount on a 1U cube of 1 kg for 4 months operations for a launch within 2 years from award and
      • A visit to the ICE Cubes control centre / clean room and the European Astronaut Centre or Monetary Award (300 Euro)
    • (B) iSEEP: To be announced (TBA)
  • Student Prize:
    • Certificate
    • (A) ICE Cubes:
      • 10% discount on a 1U cube of 1 kg for 4 months operations for a launch within 2 years from award and
      • Monetary Award (250 Euro)
    • (B) iSEEP: To be announced (TBA)
  • IAA award (TBA)
• Selected papers will be published
• High visibility for your ideas and the potential for future collaboration and support