Space Informatics

Liebe Studierende,

Due to the bad weather today, the guest lecture from SES has to be cancelled. The speakers will not be able to come over safely.

We are postponing the lecture by exactly one week.

The presentation will therefore take place on 25 January at 12:15 in E1 3, lecture hall 0.01. We apologise for the short notice cancellation.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

Tomorrow (January 18) at 12:15 we are going to jointly enjoy a guest lecture by

David Valcarcel Romeu et al., SES S.A., Luxembourg

It is about the “Software Systems to operate SES’ Multi-Orbit Satellite Fleet”.

Abstract:
Based in Luxembourg, SES is a worldwide provider of satellite telecommunications networks for supplying video and data connectivity. SES owns and operates one of the leading satellite fleets with over 70 satellites in orbit, including the well-known European Astra TV satellites.

In this presentation, David Valcarcel and colleagues from SES will present a selection of intriguing challenges that keep computer engineers and scientists busy at SES. They range from problems related to worldwide distributed data collection to operational challenges of satellites in orbit. Alumni from Saarland University CS are presenting their perspectives.

The presentation will take place in our usual lecture hall 0.01 in E1 3.

Do feel free to spread this information to your peers.

(Please note that this lecture will not be recorded.)

See you there!
Your Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

We have released the grading of the second project. You can find your results and individual feedback on your personal status page.

Also, from now on (until January 31, 2024) you can evaluate this course and the tutorials. The course evaluation by Qualis is very important to us since it helps us improve the course over time. Therefore, we kindly ask you to take the time to fill out the questionnaire. We highly appreciate your feedback. You can find the links to the course & tutorial evaluation on the materials page.

Finally, two friendly reminders for you:

If you want to participate in the final exam, you have to register for it with your examination office until January 25, 23:59. See this news for details.

The submission deadline for the last project is January 25, 11:59 (noon). Since passing the project is an admission requirement for the final exam, the grading will be done in two stages: Right after the submission deadline, we evaluate each submission on a binary scale (“pass” or “no pass”). It might however happen, that this decision is not available before the registration period for the final exam ends. In case a submission turns out not to pass, the team will not be admitted to the exam and will be deregistered (by us) without losing an examination attempt. Therefore, it is important that you register for the exam before the registration period ends, assuming you want to participate.
Later, we will evaluate the project submissions in more detail (using more complex criteria, e.g. non-default arguments passed via CLI).

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

The final exam will take place on Thursday, February 1. If you want to take part in the final exam, you have to register for this exam with your examination office until January 25, 23:59.

For the majority of students, registration happens through HISPOS, the university’s examination system. Please note that, in some cases, the list of lectures in LSF/HISPOS shows two entries for “Space Informatics”. If one of those entries is empty (i.e. shows no exam dates), search the list for a second entry. (The correct examination number in HISPOS is 11335.)

We will periodically (but manually) import the HISPOS registrations and show you your registration status on your personal status page in the dCMS. Please confirm the correctness of your registration status in the dCMS before the registration deadline.

The final exam is expected to start at 12:15 and take 90 minutes. You are allowed to bring a handwritten (not printed), double-sided A4 cheat sheet to the exam. You are not allowed to use a calculator. We will announce further details in due time.

The entire team wishes you happy holidays.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

Lecture C3 on Thursday, December 21, will take place fully virtual via Zoom. You can find the Zoom meeting link on the materials page. We will record the session as usual. There will be no public viewing from the lecture hall.

Also, to help you with the last task of Project 3, we have added a small explanation of the linear battery model to the task description.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

We have released the third project. You can find the task description on the materials page. The deadline for this project is January 25, 11:59 (noon).
All students who have submitted their dGit username should now have access to a repository containing the project skeleton. Please send us a message if you missed this but still want to participate.

To help you get started with the project, our tutors will offer a demonstration of how to integrate STK with Python. This will take place in the regular tutorial slot next week, Tuesday, December 12, at 14:15 in E2 5, SR 4 (U.16).

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

In the third (and last) project of this course, you will submit your solution by pushing it to a git repository. Therefore, we kindly ask you to complete the following steps until Thursday, December 7, 13:59.

1. Register at our GitLab instance “dGit” (only if you do not have an account yet).
2. Enter your dGit username on your personal status page in dCMS.

Once the project starts, we will give you and your team partner access to a private repository initialized with a project template. More details will follow.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

Tomorrow (November 23) at 12:15 we are going to jointly enjoy a guest lecture by

Gabriel Ruffini, INVAP S.E., Argentina

He will talk about the “Software Ecosystem in the Life Cycle of a Satellite”. Gabriel Ruffini is lead engineer at INVAP and one of the masterminds behind the recent launch of the SAOCOM-1B mission.

The presentation will take place in our usual lecture hall 0.01 in E1 3.

Do feel free to spread this information to your peers.

(Please note that this lecture will not be recorded.)

See you there!
Your Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

We have released the second project. You can find the task description on the materials page. Please upload your submission to your personal status page before December 14, 11:59 (noon).

As already announced, this is a team project that should be solved by teams of two students each. You are invited to team up on your own via your personal status page under the section “Teams”: One person in your team needs to Create a new team. This person is then shown a secret token that the second person can use to join by clicking the Join button. Please create your teams by November 19, 23:59, and send us a message should you not be able to do so.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

We have been informed that some students are having problems registering for the STK Level 1 Certification Test. They received the following text by email and then never received a response nor got access to the detailed certification exercises:

Thank you for your interest in becoming STK Certified. We are required to obtain approval from your local representative. We have forwarded your request and are awaiting a response. If you are approved, we will let you know so that you can proceed with registration.

Therefore, we have made the following two changes to the project description:

• The STK Level 1 Certification Exercises are now appended at the end of the project description.
• You do not have to officially register at AGI for the certification and submit your solutions to them, but it suffices to only upload them to your personal status page in dCMS before November 9, 11:59 (noon).

Please note that these changes only affect the submission requirements but not the actual exercises. You can find the updated project description on the dCMS materials page.

Please let us know as soon as possible if you experience further issues.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

Unfortunately, we have to postpone the first lecture scheduled for Thursday, October 26, due to an illness of our lecturer. The course will therefore resume on November 2. We are working on an update of the schedule, which will be incorporated into the dCMS calendar ASAP.

Please keep in mind that some lectures have already taken place in early October as a block. If you were unable to attend or have just heard about this course, you can find the slides and recordings on the dCMS materials page. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the course modalities presented in lecture A0. Please also note that the first practical project has already been released, with a submission deadline of November 9.

You are invited to use our discussion board to ask questions.

We all wish our lecturer a speedy recovery!

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team

Liebe Studierende,

Welcome to Space Informatics!

As we already announced on our main page, this lecture will start with a block already next week. The first lecture will take place on Monday, October 9, at 10:15 in lecture hall 0.01 of building E1 3. A provisional schedule can be found in the dCMS calendar. Further details will be presented during the first lecture.

Please note that live remote participation will not be possible. However, for those who are unable to attend, we plan to record the lectures in the block part for subsequent upload to the materials page in dCMS.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.

Viele Grüße
Euer Space Team