Ad Astra

The docking port of the Russian segment of the International Space Station was filling the cross-hairs on my screen but it was off centre.

This was not good news, to say the least.

For those of you that have never attempted to fly a Soyuz MS spacecraft to the ISS (I mean who hasn’t?) and then execute a safe and secure docking manoeuvre, whilst flying in formation at 28,000kph, its not as straight forwards as you might think… But that’s exactly what I was trying to achieve, only if I didn’t do something soon we would be docking in a rather more robust fashion than is generally considered optimal when in low Earth orbit.

This is also sometimes referred to as ‘crashing’ – and was something I was fairly keen to avoid, for many reasons, but chief amongst them was the embarrassing ‘walk of shame’ back from the simulator to my Open University Space Society friends whom I had only just met IRL as the kids say these days.

As I continue to live my life in reverse, back in early March, I found myself at the 2023 National Student Space Conference.

That’s right, I’m a student again.

It’s been 20 years since I did my first degree, in computing science, and having had the opportunity during Covid, like many, to reflect on what is really important to me, I decided to undertake a physics degree with the Open University.

All of this has opened a lot of doors for me and, as a student, I got the opportunity to attend this conference which was organised by UKSEDS and hosted by Manchester University.

There was a lot to see and do over the two days and I couldn’t quite believe that my £22 ticket included it all. Coffee breaks, lunch on both days and a few drinks on Saturday evening at the social gathering made this an absolute bargain and hats off to the people at UKSEDS and their supporters who organised and sponsored the whole thing.

One of the first things I noticed was that the British Interplanetary Society had their Soyuz simulator set up and so it was inevitable I would try my hand at this at some point, which I did on the Sunday. There are three levels to try your skills at, I settled for bronze as it was my first go, and being a pilot I was keen not to fail! Silver and gold are the next levels of difficulty and bring additional challenges over the pitch, yaw and closing speed that I had to deal with as in space there is a bit more going on and you need to handle roll or rotation amongst other factors.

It was great fun and yes, I did manage to dock with the ISS…

The key is to be gentle, don’t panic and don’t over control as you’ll end up flying into a space station!

Not a sentence I’ve written before…

However, I can now add certified Soyuz pilot (honest) to my flying CV now…

Silver level next time I think.

At some point on that second day whilst I was wandering around the exhibition halls I became aware that I was being followed. However, this was not a scary stalker or anything like that.

It was Spot.

Spot, if you are unaware is a Boston Dynamics robot dog so advanced that it can climb up and down stairs with no trouble at all! I managed to grab a photo with Spot and a, erm, rocket, whilst I was looking around at some of the posters in the marquee area.

One of the main attractions of going to the conference, apart from cool lectures and space kit, was to meet some of my fellow students from OU in person. Now, I will confess, I was a little nervous about this at first but from the moment I met up with Ian and Viktoria, through to Carole, Katie, David, Heidi, Mustafa, Kelly and all the other lovely OUer’s I met over those two days, everyone was really lovely and welcoming. Intro’s were done, and we very soon clicked over science, space and the many subjects that we are jointly fascinated by. In fact on the second day some of us were attending the talks together like we were bricks and mortar university pals, now that took me back a few years!

The end of the first day was concluded with a social.

Ian Muirhead gave me the lowdown on his journey from the British Army to PhD student at Manchester University, via The Open University and Liverpool John Moores University. I was also introduced to Dr Ciara McGrath whose compelling session, Using Space to make a World a Better Place, was delivered with the air of a highly experienced and engaging science communicator – move over Brian Cox, you’ve got competition! Ciara also happens to be Ian’s PhD supervisor and very easy to talk to.

Nick Booth, co-author of The Search for Life on Mars, was also in attendance and on good form after his talk reminiscing about his accidental career in science and regaling us with stories of Feynman et al as well as cracking appalling jokes such as:

“What do you say to a student who’s just graduated?”

“Big Mac and fries please.”

Feel free to roll your eyes now!

On the Sunday, apart from that exciting Soyuz flight mentioned above, and being chased by Spot, I spent some time talking to British/Ukrainian start-up Skyrora, and their plans to bring a vertical launch capability to the UK in Scotland. Its really great to see the enthusiasm and effort going in to the embryonic space economy here in the UK and looking around the conference there were a lot of talented young people in attendance, who I’m sure will make their mark in the future.

However, the workshop at the end of the Sunday was the real reason I was still there as the weekend drew to a close.

Hunting Exoplanets: JWST Workshop was a really great hands on way to get to work with some real JWST data and help the University of Manchester confirm the existence of water on WASP-96b, a planet 1150 light years away from Earth. The results can be found on Eamonn Kerins’ Great JWST Exoplanet Challenge webpage, and yes, that first data set tagged as Danny R, is mine.

I’ve got to say I was pretty thrilled to be involved and what a great way to engage potential new scientists.

Sadly, however, this post has an untimely postscript.

Many of us enjoyed spending some time during the conference chatting with Carole (pictured above) about her passion for Mars, along with all sorts of other space and science related topics. Sadly, Carole passed away not long after this photo was taken and I’m sure I speak for all of us in the OU Space Society when I say that we will miss her and her witty comments on the Facebook group and in our chat room.

RIP Carole – hopefully you find your way to Mars.