News in Press-centre

Students of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) assembled microsatellites at the Young Professionals (WorldSkills Russia) Regional Championship. Within three days of the competition each team managed to create a prototype of a real spacecraft and test it in action.

The space microsatellite is intended for surveying the Earth from space. This is a small box with a camera, transceiver, processor, solar sensors and other systems for working in orbit. Painstaking work and careful calculations are necessary for it to function properly. Therefore, for all three days of the championship from morning until late evening, students spent in work, assembling the future satellite and debugging its systems.

Three teams of three students from the FEFU School of Engineering and the School of Natural Sciences take part in the Space Systems Engineering competence competition. The designer is responsible for the design of the satellite model and the device to be assembled, the software developer programs the on-board computer, and the mathematician performs orbit calculations. Boris Notkin, Associate Professor,  Department of Industrial Production Technologies, Far Eastern Federal University, points out that there were much more people willing to try their hand at the championship, but not all of them could pass the selection.

"The main criterion for selecting our students is their expressed interest. Enthusiasm and interest: everything is based on this there. I'm a fan of competitions and, in my opinion, nothing better has been invented in pedagogy. We are fortunate that FEFU has become a platform for the championship, because there is a competitive challenge, and teamwork, and distinct criteria that are generated by competition. Participants need to do better than their neighbors, just like in real life," Boris Notkin admits.

The final stage of the competition is the testing of microsatellites. FEFU faculty and invited experts from the Palace of Children's Creativity in Vladivostok assess the work done. Every moment is taken into account: from the soldering of structures to the operation of the control system, which is the result of collective labor. The winner is determined by the totality of all parameters.

Academician Yuri Kulchin, the invited expert, Director of the Institute of Automation and Control Processes of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, supported the idea of the development of space engineering at FEFU.

"We have a nearby Vostochny Cosmodrome, a young and new one. It requires qualified personnel, and it is simply impossible to bring them from the European part of Russia. So, we need to train people here. What students are doing now is the first step on the big road that we have to go through in the next 10 years. To solve the impending problems of overpopulation, humanity needs to go into space. Therefore, it is so important that the space program will become one of the topics for the project activities of the FEFU students in this academic year," Yuri Kulchin said.

"We will gather teams of bachelors and masters in various fields who will develop, assemble and eventually launch their small space vehicle in the CubeSat format," said Stanislav Karpenko, the Lead Expert in the Space Systems Engineering competency, the Director of the FEFU Project Activity Center." "Now, Roscosmos actively supports such initiatives in universities and conducts launches from cosmodromes on preferential terms."

The WorldSkills Russia regional championship is held in FEFU for the first time. Sixty five students perform assignments in 11 competencies. The names of the winners will be known on September 22 and they will represent the university in the finals of the national interuniversity competitions in Moscow.

WorldSkills is an international non-profit movement whose goal is to enhance the prestige of the working professions and to develop vocational education by harmonizing the best practices and professional standards around the world. For this purpose, WorldSkills standards of professional skills are regularly held in different countries.