AGH UST student awarded by the president of the Polish Space Agency

The thesis, which was supervised by Assoc. Professor Marek Miśkowicz, is titled System pozyskiwania energii i transmisji danych dla pseudosatelity stratosferycznego [A System for Energy Acquisition and Data Transmission for a High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite]. Its aim was to design and build a HAPS tasked with staying in the stratosphere at altitudes ranging from 10 to 30 km and travelling around the world on the naturally occurring winds in this part of the atmosphere. The pseudo-satellite can stay up thanks to a special balloon filled with helium or hydrogen. During its flight, the satellite is to store the data gathered by the sensors, cameras, and the positioning system. Then, its built-in transmitters are to send the data, using the 2-metre and 70-centimetre bands, to the ground-based radio stations placed throughout the globe. The pseudo-satellite is powered by solar panels that charge the supercapacitors mid-flight. The energy stored there is then distributed to individual satellite subsystems by a dedicated power management system, according to current conditions. As part of the engineering thesis, three different HAPS prototypes were constructed. The third, which is the first to fly around the world, was named ‘MAGELLAN-3’.

The author continues his studies at the AGH UST (second-cycle) in Microelectronics in Industry and Medicine.

For this year’s edition of the POLSA competition, 31 dissertations were submitted from 18 Polish higher education institutions (5 BA theses, 8 engineering theses, and 18 MA theses). 7 BA and engineering theses as well as 5 MA dissertations made it to the final stage of the competition. In each category there was one honourable mention and the first, second, and third prizes.

The topic of the dissertations in this year’s edition was to encompass issues relating to broad space studies, both in theoretical and practical aspects, the relationship and impact of human activity in the scope of space research and exploration and the use of space technologies, as well as the impact of research and space technologies on the development of various disciplines of science, economy, society, and politics.

The criteria taken into account in the assessment of the works were primarily the scientific, cognitive, and implementation values, as well as the current academic achievement in relation to the subject matter of the thesis (completeness of the literature and its review).

The jury comprised 8 people representing Polish technical universities, including Professor Tadeusz Uhl from AGH University of Science and Technology.

The laureates of the 4^th edition of the POLSA competition were announced on December 20, 2021, during a conference organised by the Polish Space Agency in Krakow. Andrzej Laczewski, Eng, had the opportunity to present his thesis there.