Expedition ISP20 Blog - Week 5

Initiate Re-Entry Sequence!

After 5 weeks on our virtual habitats across Earth orbit, Moon and Mars, the time has come to return to Earth. The final touches to our Mission Report and Presentation have been made and the re-entry sequence has been initiated.

For this final week of ISP20, we did not have any additional lectures or workshops. The mentorship program is complete, and our time together is coming to an end (at least in terms of this program).

Week 5 was spent putting together the final drafts of the Team Mission Reports, the Executive Summary, and the Team Mission Presentations. Although we were all quite tired from an intense number of weeks, and a significant amount of work, the team's enthusiasm did not falter! Everyone continued to work to the best of their ability, reviewing, editing, and improving the work done. I am delighted to share the final report covers with you below!

A lot of thought went into the concepts of these designs. For the report on Monitoring, the design shows a "geometric stylization of earth as seen from space, overlaid by an ECG pattern as an icon for health monitoring and orbited by the depiction of a satellite. The six trapezoids are borrowed from the International Space Station’s Cupola window architecture and evoke a personal and human connection to space and earth observation.".

For the Mitigation report in the middle, "the two hands in astronaut gloves represent the human connection of space, the arms both cradle the earth, taking care of it, and pass on a cure, the pill."

For the third report, on prevention and preparedness, "the shield represents protection, a blockade between pandemics and the Earth. The background elements reference the accomplishments of the Apollo program. Preventing pandemics would be a great leap for mankind, as symbolized by the footstep on the moon trampling the virus. The Mobile quarantine facility represents the preventative measure/preparedness that space already uses, specially with respect to pathogens."

Over these five weeks, we, the crew, have studied the prevention and preparedness strategies adopted in the past to deal with pandemics across the globe. We have reviewed literature and consulted experts in the relevant fields to produce some final recommendations to decision makers on how to prepare for the next pandemic. You can find our final reports in the ISU library here.

Our final Team Meeting

We knew this day would come, but I think we all felt a little sad to have our final Moon Habitat Team Meeting.

At this point, there was little mission related discussion to be had, instead, this meeting became more of a debriefing on our overall experience and how well we all worked together to achieve our goal.

I am proud of all my crew members, but I am especially proud of my Moon Habitat Team! We overcame challenges and obstacles and worked fantastically well together. I am so glad I got to be a part of such a dedicated and diligent team of people!

No More Cookies

Our CapCom, Lisa Kucher, has been an integral part of our Expedition. Every day throughout the program we began with our 'daily pack of cookies', or our daily briefing, from our CapCom. Our Last Daily Planning Conference was when it really hit that things were coming to an end.

I will definitely miss starting my day with Lisa's enthusiasm and energetic personality! And of course, I will miss the Mission Control plushies too! (you can sneak a peek of one or two of them in the right had side of Lisa's screen!)

I also had my final meeting this week with my coach, Lucy Stojack. It was both an honour and pleasure to get to know Lucy. I cannot begin to put into words how much I appreciated her advice and guidance throughout ISP, and I hope our paths cross again in the future!

The Future of ISP

Every class that graduates from ISU, nominates a Class Speaker, and Class Representatives. The Class Speaker is the ISP crew member who will represent the entire crew and give a speech during the closing ceremony that covers all the events of our shared experience. The Class Representatives are the ISP participants who take on the responsibility of keeping the ISP20 class in contact after the program ends. They are the people who will arrange reunions, alumni weekends or other events for the ISP20 class in the future.

I was both shocked and extremely honoured to have been nominated for both Class Speaker and Class Representative by my fellow crew members!

While I was not elected, I am over the moon (literally!) for our chosen class representatives Samy, Karlijn and May Li, and for Bruno our inspirational class speaker!

Becoming ISU Alumni!

The day of re-entry began with the presentation of our Team Mission Documentaries. A lot of time and hard work went into perfecting these videos, and I must say they turned out quite impressively!

If you would like to watch our Team Mission Documentary on

"The Role of Space during Pandemics"

you can watch it here!

Then, it finally came time for us to launch from our respective habitats and begin our re-entry sequence back to Earth. But first, it was time for a short look back on ISP20, the ISP Staff put together a fantastic recap video including clips from seminars, workshops, the alumni conference, Habitat challenges, and social events!

To watch our Re-Entry Sequence click here.

This was followed by speeches from ISU Sponsor Representatives from ESA, Lockheed Martin, and the UK Space Agency. It was then time for us to receive our mission completion certificates as we 'exited' the capsule back on Earth. We were presented with our certificates by G2, our Captain and Director of SSP, SHSSP and ISP, Juan De Dalmau, our Co-Commander and Director of ISU, and Prof. Pascale Ehrenfreund, ISU Chancellor and Chair of the Executive Board at DLR.

And it's official! We have completed our 5 week mission and joined the ISU Alumni community!

Thank You!

Following our re-entry sequence, we heard from ISU faculty representatives from each team, Education, Logistics, IT, and Communications. We also heard from our CapCom, our Captain G2, and a special guest, ISU Co-Founder Bob Richards!

We, the crew, also wanted to thank the ISP20 Staff, Mentors, and Coaches, and so we compiled a short message from each crew member in their native languages to present to the ISP20 Mission Operations Center. What a lovely representation of the Intercultural aspect of ISU!

Signing off..

And that brings Expedition ISP20 to a close! These past five weeks have been amazing, exciting and a most memorable experience. I have met and interacted with some fantastic and wonderful people, and I hope we continue to stay connected in the future! Congratulations to all my fellow crew members on the successful completion of our mission!

I hope you enjoyed reading along and at least got a taste of what my ISP20 experience was like.

But for now, this is me, signing off!

(P.S. here is my official mission crew photo, how very Star Trek-esque!)