Regional Government promotes Cansat Junior final in Santa Maria

Subsecretário Regional da Presidência

The Office of the Regional Under Secretary of the Presidency, through the Azores Mission Structure for Space (EMA-Space), promotes the final of the CanSat Junior Açores competition on May 26 and 27, which will take place on the island of Santa Maria.

The CanSat Junior Azores competition takes place following a training workshop for teachers and team leaders, held on the island of São Miguel in December 2022. It will involve 13 teams from seven islands of the archipelago, covering about one hundred students and teachers.

This event falls under the priority axis Dissemination, Education and Scientific Culture for Space, of the Azores Strategy for Space, as an area of intervention for the creation of generations of Azoreans who are attentive to the STEM sector (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), directly or indirectly linked to the space sector. This will contribute to meeting the demands in terms of qualifications that the sector requires and to the growth of the space ecosystem in the Azores.

The regional pilot edition of this project, created in Portugal by the European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO), with the supervision and validation of the European Space Agency (ESA), aims to provide young basic education students in the Region with the opportunity to be in contact with a scientific and technological project, based on a context of simulation of a "real" space project - construction and launch of a microsatelite equipped with sensors, a communication system, a recovery system and with energy autonomy, which should be capable of measuring atmospheric parameters and sending data by telemetry to a ground station operated by the students.

Cansat Junior Açores is organised by the Regional Government in partnership with the Portuguese delegation of the European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO Portugal), Ciência Viva - the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture and the Portuguese Space Agency - Portugal Space. It is also supported by numerous local, national and international entities.