News

(Re-)Exam Results

Written on 24.11.21 by Gregory Stock

Liebe Studierende,

the results of the re-exam as well as your (possibly improved) overall course grade are now visible on your personal status page.

You will have the opportunity to inspect your exam. This will take place in person on campus, respecting the strict Corona Pandemic rules of… Read more

Liebe Studierende,

the results of the re-exam as well as your (possibly improved) overall course grade are now visible on your personal status page.

You will have the opportunity to inspect your exam. This will take place in person on campus, respecting the strict Corona Pandemic rules of Saarland University. Please write a message to the @Assistants swiftly (i.e. before December 1) in case you want to inspect your exam. We will then make an individual appointment with you.

Please note that we also re-calculated the grades of the final exam. We noticed a bug in the computation of the course grade that resulted in the use of an unintended grade scale table. This may only positively affect your grade, i.e. you now have either the same or a better grade. We apologize that we have only just noticed this.

Viele Grüße,
Euer Space Team

Important Information on the Re-Exam

Written on 11.10.21 by Gregory Stock

Liebe Studierende,

On Thursday, October 14, we will write the re-exam as announced.

Please refer to the information in the forum.

In particular, please make sure you are aware that the exam will take place starting 10:15 in E1 3, HS002, and that you know your seat. You will find it on your Read more

Liebe Studierende,

On Thursday, October 14, we will write the re-exam as announced.

Please refer to the information in the forum.

In particular, please make sure you are aware that the exam will take place starting 10:15 in E1 3, HS002, and that you know your seat. You will find it on your personal status page.

Also, note that you are only allowed to attend in-person events if you can prove that you are fully vaccinated, have received a negative COVID-19 test result or have recovered from an infection with COVID-19 (COVID-19 status / ‘3G’ status).

Wearing a medical mouth-nose protection mask (surgical mask or FFP2/KN95/N95 mask) is strongly recommended at all university locations. If it is impossible to maintain the minimum physical distance of 1.5 metres, you are required to wear a medical face cover, e.g. while entering/leaving the room (this includes also waiting situations), moving in the room, and while talking to supervisors. You are strongly advised to wear protective masks during the entire exam, also while sitting at the seat.

We would also like to remind you again of the health questionnaire:

  • Did you have definite contact with a Covid-19 patient, who was tested positive, in the last 14 days?
  • Do you have any of the following symptoms?
    • Cough / Husten
    • Sore throat / Halsschmerzen
    • Nasal congestion / runny nose / Schnupfen
    • Diarrhoea / Durchfall
    • Fever / Fieber
    • Aches and pains / Gliederschmerzen
    • Loss of smell (e.g. no longer able to smell burnt food) / Geruchsverlust
    • Loss of taste (e.g. unable to distinguish when food is burnt) / Geschmacksverlust

If your answer is “Yes” to one or more of these questions, then you are not allowed to attend the exam. If you provide a doctor’s certificate to the examination office later on, the examination attempt will be canceled and will not count.

If you are unsure about any of these questions, please consult a doctor. If the doctor decides that you can safely take the exam, you will need to provide a certificate attesting this along to the exam.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Re-Exam Registration

Written on 28.09.21 by Gilles Nies

Liebe Studierende,

the re-exam will take place on Thursday (14.10.2021) at 10 AM in lecture hall HS002 in building E1.3.

If you plan to take the exam, please register via your personal status page UNTIL Thursday, 07.10.21 23:59.

Viele Grüße,
Euer Space Team

Exam Inspection

Written on 28.09.21 by Gilles Nies

Liebe Studierende,

we will have the exam inspection this Friday (01.10.2021) from 10 AM to 11 AM in lecture hall HS III in building E2.5.

Please register for the inspection via your personal status page as soon as you can, UNTIL Thursday, 30.09.21, 7 PM, since we will experience a planned… Read more

Liebe Studierende,

we will have the exam inspection this Friday (01.10.2021) from 10 AM to 11 AM in lecture hall HS III in building E2.5.

Please register for the inspection via your personal status page as soon as you can, UNTIL Thursday, 30.09.21, 7 PM, since we will experience a planned downtime of our services, and you won't reach this page, nor any other services related to the lecture until Sunday.

If you need to contact us, you can still reach out on Discord.

Note that wearing a medical mouth-nose protection mask (surgical mask or FFP2/KN95/N95 mask) is mandatory in all university buildings.

Viele Grüße,
Euer Space Team

 

Exam Results and Grades

Written on 17.09.21 by Gilles Nies

Liebe Studierende,

the results of the exam, as well as your grade are now visible on your Personal Status page.

Viele Grüße,
Euer Space Team

Important Information on the Final Exam

Written on 31.07.21 by Gregory Stock

Liebe Studierende,

Next Monday, 2nd August, we will write the final exam as announced.

Please refer to the information in the forum.

In particular, please make sure you are aware that the exam will take place starting 10:00 in E2 2, GHH, and that you know your seat. You will find it on your Read more

Liebe Studierende,

Next Monday, 2nd August, we will write the final exam as announced.

Please refer to the information in the forum.

In particular, please make sure you are aware that the exam will take place starting 10:00 in E2 2, GHH, and that you know your seat. You will find it on your personal status page. Also, note that wearing a medical mouth-nose protection mask (surgical mask or FFP2/KN95/N95 mask) is mandatory at all university locations. Face coverings have to be worn inside all buildings and also during all in-person activities, i.e. during the whole examination.

We would also like to remind you again of the health questionnaire:

  • Did you have definite contact with a Covid-19 patient, who was tested positive, in the last 14 days?
  • Do you have any of the following symptoms?
    • Cough / Husten
    • Sore throat / Halsschmerzen
    • Nasal congestion / runny nose / Schnupfen
    • Diarrhoea / Durchfall
    • Fever / Fieber
    • Aches and pains / Gliederschmerzen
    • Loss of smell (e.g. no longer able to smell burnt food) / Geruchsverlust
    • Loss of taste (e.g. unable to distinguish when food is burnt) / Geschmacksverlust

If your answer is “Yes” to one or more of these questions, then you are not allowed to attend the exam. If you provide a doctor’s certificate to the examination office later on, the examination attempt will be canceled and will not count.

If you are unsure about any of these questions, please consult a doctor. If the doctor decides that you can safely take the exam, you will need to provide a certificate attesting this along to the exam.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Exam Admission and Registration

Written on 23.07.21 (last change on 23.07.21) by Gilles Nies

Liebe Studierende,

you can now see on your personal status page whether you are admitted to the final exam on August 2nd, at 10 AM.
Please register for the exam in dCMS (also via your personal status page) as soon as possible, preferably before Monday, July 26.
 
More details about the… Read more

Liebe Studierende,

you can now see on your personal status page whether you are admitted to the final exam on August 2nd, at 10 AM.
Please register for the exam in dCMS (also via your personal status page) as soon as possible, preferably before Monday, July 26.
 
More details about the specifics of the exam will follow shortly.
 
Viele Grüße,
  Euer Space Team

Course Evaluation

Written on 01.07.21 by Gilles Nies

Dear Space Enthusiasts,

as with every course, you have the opportunity to evaluate the lecture as well as the tutorials/office hours.
This provides us with aggregated feedback and gives us hints on how to improve the lecture.

The entire evaluation will roughly take 5 minutes to complete, and… Read more

Dear Space Enthusiasts,

as with every course, you have the opportunity to evaluate the lecture as well as the tutorials/office hours.
This provides us with aggregated feedback and gives us hints on how to improve the lecture.

The entire evaluation will roughly take 5 minutes to complete, and you’ll have until July 15, 2021 to submit your feedback before the links go offline.

You'll find the evaluation links on our discussion board here.

Viele Grüße
    Euer Space Team

Guest Lecture by Scott Burleigh on Interplanetary Networking

Written on 23.06.21 by Holger Hermanns

Liebe Studierende,

Tomorrow (July 24) at 5pm (sharp) we are going to jointly enjoy a guest lecture  by

Scott Burleigh, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Title: Deep Impact Network -- The first exercise of delay tolerant networking in an interplanetary… Read more

Liebe Studierende,

Tomorrow (July 24) at 5pm (sharp) we are going to jointly enjoy a guest lecture  by

Scott Burleigh, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Title: Deep Impact Network -- The first exercise of delay tolerant networking in an interplanetary environment

Abstract:
On 18 October 2008, NASA began experimental operation of the most geographically extensive internetwork in history. Two of the subnetworks were located in the Protocol Technology Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. The third was on-board the Deep Impact “flyby” spacecraft, renamed EPOXI, in interplanetary space. Over the course of the experiment, the distance from EPOXI to Earth ranged from 49 to 79 light seconds (14.7 to 23.7 million km). In this talk, we will briefly consider how DINET came to be, how it was built, and the results of the experiment, with a bit of focus on the “checkout” exercise that first showed us that the thing would work.

The presentation will take place at our usual Zoom link. You find the participation link in the Materials page in our dCMS.

See you there!
 Holger & Juan

Welcome to Space!

Written on 14.04.21 (last change on 15.04.21) by Gilles Nies

Liebe Studierende,

Welcome to Space Informatics!

This news contains important information such as the planned course structure, and how to remotely participate in the course's events.

Live Event:

We ask you to be present at the live event tomorrow, April 15 at 2pm, taking place in Zoom.… Read more

Liebe Studierende,

Welcome to Space Informatics!

This news contains important information such as the planned course structure, and how to remotely participate in the course's events.

Live Event:

We ask you to be present at the live event tomorrow, April 15 at 2pm, taking place in Zoom. You find the participation link in the Materials page in our dCMS.

Course Structure:

  • The lectures will mostly consist of recorded videos published in our dCMS. Whenever there are live lectures, they will be announced beforehand. Live lectures will be held in Zoom (and might or might not be recorded).
  • In addition, there will be live events on weekly Thursdays. There, the lecturers will briefly recap the covered materials and then offer you the possibility to ask questions and initiate discussions. We will use Zoom for this, too.
  • The default mode of operation for Thursdays after the live events are office hours. There, you can reach out to our tutors and get help with exercises and the projects.
  • Sometimes on Thursdays a tutorial will take place instead of office hours, to support you in studying the course contents. This is the place where various types of exercises are discussed. Both, the tutorials and office hours, will take place on Discord (link in Materials).
  • The course comprises four practical projects. Depending on the number of participants, you may be able to work on those in groups of two.
  • More details will be provided in the first introductory event on Thursday, April 15, at 2pm. You can find the participation link on the Materials page in the dCMS.

Physical Presence on Campus?

It will be possible to participate in the course (i.e. lectures and tutorials), and to be admitted to the final exam from remote. Note, however, that a written exam is at this point scheduled to take place on campus in the morning of August 2, 2021.

Feel free to contact us if you have any more questions.

Viele Grüße
    Euer Space Team

Show all

Space Informatics

A full semester module offered by the Chair of Dependable Systems and Software in summer 2021. It is worth 6 CP ECTS.

Context

Space technology is experiencing an unprecedented expansion in a what came to be known as the “new space”.

Massive mega-constellations comprised by thousands of satellites are being deployed in near-Earth orbit to provide world-wide Internet coverage and real-time imaging. This is enabled by lower cost and reusable rockets, which are launching more and cheaper spacecraft than ever before. Indeed, nanosatellite platforms of a few liters of volume are leveraging state-of-the-art miniaturization and electronics to pack capabilities traditionally exclusive of large satellites.

As a result, space is becoming more democratic, accessible to many academic actors, and open for start-ups to develop innovating commercial opportunities. Moreover, these advances spill to an increasing number of interplanetary robotic exploration missions, which in turn boost and motivate the possibility of manned missions to the Moon and Mars in the upcoming years.

Motivation

The amount and features of “new space” orbiting assets would simply fail to scale up without the proper support of automated, optimal, efficient, scalable, usable and robust computer sciences models and techniques combining both on-board as well as on-ground components.

Also, informatics can play a decisive role in facilitating a more sustainable space with accurate battery models, delay-tolerant data handling, trajectory optimization, debris collision avoidance, system verification and validation, on-line telemetry learning, among many others application opportunities.

Space is within reach, and future space professionals with this know-how at hand will become a valuable resource in the immediate future of space industry.

Space Informatics

The Space Informatics course is framed in the new space context and motivated on the hypothesis that computer sciences will play a central role in future near-Earth and interplanetary space missions. To this end, we present a curricula layout organized in three axes:

  1. the fundamentals of space environment ranging from orbital dynamics, to maneuvers, and interplanetary trajectories design,
  2. the specifics of space technology comprising energy handling, computers, communications and networking, and
  3. the application of informatics to 1. and 2. including linear and dynamic programming, model checking, and scheduling techniques.

These axes are accompanied by practical exercises and hand-on projects involving state-of-the-art software toolchains such as Systems Toolkit (STK). We will exploit scriptable interfaces (Python) to control STK and evaluate and optimize distributed space missions using informatics modelling tools such as Gurobi and Uppaal.

Contents

STK Imge

  1. Fundamentals
    1. Space Applications
    2. Distributed Missions
    3. Physics and Orbits
    4. Propagation and Perturbation
    5. Launch and Maneuvers
    6. Trajectories Design
    7. Space Environment
  2. Technology
    1. Satellite Technologies
    2. Computers in Space
    3. Basic Communications
    4. Link Budget and Multiplexing
    5. Space Networks
    6. Delay-Tolerant Networks
    7. Simulation and Analysis Tools
  3. Informatics
    1. Linear Programming Optimization
    2. Dynamic Programming Optimization
    3. Time Automata Model Checking
    4. Battery-Aware Scheduling
    5. Battery-Aware Contact Planning
    6. Machine Learning in Space

Organization

This course is offered by Holger Hermanns and Juan Fraire.

This module runs during the summer term 2021. First lecture on Thu, April 15 at 2pm, online.
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