2010 International Astronautical Congress
Student Paper Competition 
UK Undergraduate Selection

1. Introduction

Organised by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), the annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC) is the largest astronautics/space engineering conference in the world.

As part of the IAC, each year the Student Activities Subcommittee (SAS) of the IAF Space Education and Outreach Committee (SEOC) holds a student competition (the ‘Student Conference’) with prizes for best papers/presentation in each. One of the categories is undergraduate (age limit of 28 on 1 January 2010). Papers may be on any subject related to space sciences, industry or technology.
 
For the 2010 Prague IAC, the selection of the UK paper will be carried out by the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) after the main IAF deadline of 5 March 2010. This is to allow undergraduate students to make as much progress as possible on their project work before the selection takes place.

2. Process

To enter, all that is required is for students to email an abstract to Dr Chris Welch, the Chair of the BIS IAC Student Paper Selection Committee by the deadline given below. Once the abstract has been received, the supervisor will be emailed to confirm their support for the entry. The format of the abstract should be:

Student Name:
Student Age on 1 January 2010:
Affiliation:
Student Email:
Paper Title:
Supervisor Name:
Supervisor Email:
Abstract:

Once all the abstracts have been submitted, a shortlist will be drawn up and the finalists will invited to the BIS in London to present their work to the BIS Selection Committee and a winner and runner-up selected (please note that the BIS is unable to pay travelling expenses for attending the final selection). The winner will represent the UK in the postgraduate part of the student paper competition at the Prague IAC and, it is anticipated, will receive a contribution towards the costs of attending the IAC.

3. Timetable

1 March 2010 - Call for abstracts 
31 March 2010 - Deadline for submission of abstracts
21 April 2010 - Notification of finalists
12 May 2010 - Finalist presentations - winner and runner-up selected

4. Queries

Please email any queries to Dr Chris Welch, Chair - BIS IAC Student Paper Selection Committee.