Alpbach 2009
Summer school Alpbach 21. – 30. 7. 2008 The Alpbach summer school was hold in the lovely mountain city Alpbach this year. In these days the exoplanets are one of the most interesting and most developed topics of the current astrophysics. After 15 years of the discovering the first exoplanet surrounding the main sequence star – well known 51 Peg b – the astronomers are trying to detect the biomakers (the proofs of the existence of life on this newly discovered planets). It is therefore not surprising that the theme of this year's summer school was proposed space mission that could respond the most fundamental questions of humanity: "We are alone in the Universe?"?
Summer Scholl Alpbach 2009
The summer school itself began on Thursday 21. 7. shortly after the registration in the morning hours. For the first time we were made acquainted with the program of the school and the main goal of our mission – to suggest such a space mission that will be able to detect possible life on the exoplanets. Our challenge was to completely prepare the space craft to design all scientist devices, payload and the mission control. I must say that upon a task which included the complete design of the satellite to detect manifestations of life on exoplanets (the biomarkers), including scientific equipment, runways, construction and financing, etc., I felt totally unrealistic. I am studying exoplanets but about the developing of the space craft and the controlling of the space mission I know nothing. But after the first meeting of our team everything began to look hopeful. Our team consisted of 6 physicists (of which we two were astronomers), 8 engineers (2 even rocket scientists), and one geologist ...
Our school started with the series of the general lectures about the methods of the exoplanets detections and the construction of the space crafts and also one very important lecture about the manual how to coordinate the team work in the case of the developing the space mission. Each team was completed by the two tutors (one scientist and one engineer) and we also could ask for science advice many scientists that were in Alpbach during the summer school. Two days we discussed inside our team the main goal of our mission. Finally on Friday we had our main goal: Detection of the atmosphere and potential biomarkers in the rocky planets orbiting around M-Stars. Our work was relatively straightforward. It turned out that our team is really very well composed and balanced, and so despite of minor problems, we quickly headed to a successful end. 
DWARFS Space Mission Team
Given that our work progressed very quickly we decided to join the Sunday short trip to the mountains. Unfortunately the original three-hour walk changed into whole day trip and so we have had to work very hard on our project. We got into a time slip. Next nights were for us very drudging. We went to bed around 3 o’clock. Every morning we have received some lectures, but the whole afternoon until the early morning hours, we have worked hard to create a mission. Time was relentless. What normally takes a year or more, we had managed to midnight on Wednesday when it was declared a merciless deadline. No later than midnight, we had to submit 10-page report by the mission and presentation.
DWARFS Space Mission Team
On the final day the commission came from ESA. Each team had a one hour presentation of their mission. After the presentation half hour of answering questions followed.After dinner the announcement of the winners followed.Unfortunately, there was shown a weakness in this year's summer school. Commission, which assessed individual projects were not perfectly composed. In the commission only one expert on extrasolar planets was sat, because of this the “winner” was very well-presented mission, but the mission in real terms can not be realized. Our mission Dwarfs Space Mission (Diverse World Around Faint Stars) finally took the award for the best prepared mission, which is the current technology and resources to carry out ...
After a surprising and highly embarrassing announcement of winners (when all expected a clear victory of our team) at least a little satisfaction for us was that tutors and lecturers at the Summer School advised us to continue on our work and then published it ...
Stanislav Poddaný, Praha, August/2009
