World Space Week

Published on September 27, 2022

What is World Space Week?

World Space Week is the largest annual space event in the world which was established to celebrate the contributions of space science and technology to the betterment of the human condition. The theme of World Space Week 4-10 October 2022 is "Space and Sustainablilty" and its goals are to: 

  • Provide unique leverage in space outreach and education
  • Educate people around the world about the benefits that they receive from space
  • Encourage greater use of space for sustainable economic development
  • Demonstrate public support for space programs
  • Excite young people about science, technology, engineering, and math
  • Foster international cooperation in space outreach and education

CERN Alumni working in  the field

Throughout the years, the Office for Alumni  Relations has highlighted several stories of CERN Alumni working in the space industry.

-> Grzegorz Wrochna - President of Polish Space Agency

Revisit the talk he gave during the Second Collisions event in 2021, in which he describes how surprised he was about how his career in particle physics and especially his CERN experience, prepared him for the new job: https://alumni.cern/news/538353 

-> Shannon Towey - Former Systems Software Engineer at NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory

CERN Alumna Shannon Towey worked on mission systems and operations of spacecraft on Mars, including Mars 2020 rover mission - see the interview we did with her in California back in 2019: https://alumni.cern/news/395710 

-> Christer Fuglesang - Former Astronaut

In his talk during the First Collisions, Christer talks about how he was selected by ESA and left preparations for ATLAS at LHC to prepare for missions to space: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2303354?

-> Jean-Pierre Vialle - Physicist

Jean- Pierre has contributed to multiple large-scale experiments, both terrestrial and outer space. In the latest CERN Alumni interview, he reflects on the challenges particularly related to experiments which function in outer space: https://alumni.cern/news/951329

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Resources: https://www.worldspaceweek.org/about/

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LHCf continues to investigate cosmic rays

September 28, 2022
Millions of cosmic rays bombard the Earth’s atmosphere every second. These are naturally-occurring particles from outer space, which are extremely difficult to detect and measure. When they collide with nuclei in the upper atmosphere, these so-called primary cosmic rays produce showers of secondary cosmic rays that go on to reach the ground. The Large Hadron Collider forward (LHCf) experiment, one