This brand new short course will provide a comprehensive introduction to the spacecraft technologies that have revolutionised our understanding of the solar system and the wider universe. Across six sessions, satellite system engineer Stuart Eves will explore the engineering behind these enormous undertakings, plus look at how the results from spacecrafts' scientific instruments have contributed to our knowledge of space.

The first of the six lectures will describe the key spacecraft sub-systems, and demonstrate how a scientific satellite’s payload influences the design of its platform.
The next three lectures will provide a broad survey of the information on the solar system that has been derived from fly-by missions, orbiters, landers, rovers and sample return missions to the Moon, the planets, and other celestial bodies.
The fifth lecture will demonstrate how our understanding of our Milky Way galaxy, and the subject of cosmology more generally, has been transformed by space-based telescopes.
The final lecture of the course will look at the future of space science and engineering missions over the next couple of decades, and what we may hope to learn from them.

The course level will be aimed at committed non-experts, and no particular level of mathematics will be assumed. The course will run for six, 90-minute sessions as follows (each session runs 7.00pm to 8.30pm)

Monday 23 June 2025
Monday 30 June 2025
Monday 7 July 2025
Monday 14 July 2025
Monday 28 July 2025
Tuesday 29 July 2025

The course costs £400 (£340 Members) for six sessions, including all course materials and refreshments. The course is for interest only, with no qualification, examination, or certificate of attendance at its conclusion.

Event image by PIRO4D vias Pixabay

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An introduction to space science and engineering (Short Course)