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ESA to Hold 9th Micro and Nano Technologies Round Table in EPFL's New Swiss Tech Convention Center

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Jul 15 2013

Micro and Nano Technologies (MNT) for space applications will be the theme of this important meeting. It will take place in the new Swiss Tech Convention Center on 10-13 June 2014 and will host members from national delegations, space agencies, space and MNT industries, research centrers and universities.

Micro and Nano Technologies (MNT) have great potential in space applications like communication, navigation, Earth observation and scientific missions. On 10-13 June 2014, the European Space Agency (ESA) will hold its 9th MNT round table in the brand new EPFL's Swiss Tech Convention Center, to promote the use of state-of-the-art technologies for space applications and report on these experiences. About 200 experts participated in previous round-tables. The audience is expected to include members from national delegations, space agencies, space and MNT industries, research centers. Universities will all participate as users and as providers of MNT-based equipment and systems.

MNT are increasingly important for the field of space research, by fostering new types of scientific missions and instruments, reducing cost, size, mass and time from mission conception to launch, increasing performance, reliability and redundancy. Today MNT have proven themselves useful in Earth-based applications by showing outstanding performance and reliability figures. MNT have enabled several ESA projects and scientific.

The objective of this 9th Round-Table on Micro and Nano Technologies for space is to discuss recent progress in MNT, notably in packaging and integration, MNT reliability, standardization of MNT evaluation and qualification methodologies or availability of commercial micro-systems. It will also be the opportunity to present on-going space qualification activities, encourage space spin-in and spin-out activities, consolidate ESA MNT roadmaps and talk about the additional efforts needed to concretize MNT access to space programs.

Topics of particular interest

This Round Table will address Micro and Nano Technologies including: Micro Electromechanical Systems (MEMS), Micro-Systems Technology (MST) and Nanotechnology. Emphasis will be placed on MEMS and MST topics, such as flight qualification procedures and outcomes, micro-packaging and system integration, test, reliability and evaluation for space, technology transfer to and from the space industry, flight feedback from in-orbit demonstration (IOD), use in space projects or technology roadmaps.

For the past few years, interest in nanotechnology applied to the space sector has increased, confirmed by the growing number of paper submission and dedicated sessions at the last ESA round tables. In the field of Nanotechnology, topics of particular interest are nanomaterials test centers, improvement of material intrinsic properties with nanomaterials, characterisation of nanomaterials and nano-objects, nanotechnology for microelectronics and microwave devices, nanotechnology for power applications.

Time table of events: