Award of the President of the Polish Space Agency for a Gdańsk Tech student | Gdańsk University of Technology

The aim of the competition is to promote individual and team achievements of students of Polish universities. This year, doctoral dissertations were also assessed for the first time. This year's, fifth edition of the competition received a record number of applications. In total, 49 papers were submitted from 19 universities and research units across the country.

The competition is divided into three categories: engineering / bachelor's theses, master's theses and doctoral theses. Marcin Jasiukowicz was awarded the 3rd degree award for his engineering thesis entitled “Stardust - Stratospheric Experimental Platform”. The thesis supervisor was Daniel Wachowiak, PhD, Eng., from the Faculty of Electrical and Control Engineering, where the laureate completed his first cycle studies. In his engineering thesis, Marcin deals with the subject of flights of stratospheric balloons and the research platform that he constructed with the Stardust team as part of the international REXUS / BEXUS project. The project involved conducting microbiological studies of the stratosphere from the Esrange cosmodrome in Kiruna, Sweden. The engineering work focuses on the electronics controlling the experiment that Marcin designed during his studies.

– My engineering thesis is a summary of two years of work on the "Stardust" project, which, together with the science club "SimLE", was carried out in cooperation with the Swedish, German and European Space Agency under the REXUS / BEXUS program – says Marcin Jasiukowicz – Award in the competition of the President of The Polish Space Agency is a great honor both for me and for my contribution to my student research activities, which I continue at my master's studies and as part of the SimLE activities. I hope that my work will inspire similar work of students in the field of space research at Gdańsk Tech and encourage ambitious projects during their studies that go beyond the scheme.

Currently, the young scientist is studying automation and robotics at the Faculty of Electrical and Control Engineering. He is the laureate of the Gdańsk Tech Students' Self-Government "Golden Lion" plebiscite in the category of student scientist.