The IEEC hosts five high school students during the summer as part of the ‘Youth and Science’ programme

This summer, the Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC) has offered five high school students the opportunity to gain a close insight into the daily work of a research team. These placements are part of the second phase of the programme to promote scientific careers, ‘Youth and Science’, run by the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera, and it is the second consecutive year that the IEEC has hosted students in this phase.

Beyond providing high-value and practical technical learning through day-to-day work in a research group, the ‘Youth and Science’ placements offer the opportunity to develop key skills such as communication, decision-making, and collaboration. For many, experiences like these serve as a pathway to guide their academic and professional future.

The Photsat team, the first scientific satellite developed entirely by the IEEC and designed to monitor the 40 million brightest stars in the sky, hosted Ian Montero. During his placement, the student collaborated on tasks in the electronics laboratory, working with instruments and tools for the development and testing of the satellite’s subsystems. In addition, he acquired skills in scientific and technological work related to space exploration.

The research group studying systematic errors in measuring the Hubble constant, at the Institut de Ciències de l’Espai (ICE-CSIC), hosted Martina Solano, who collaborated in the characterisation of nearby galaxies with Cepheid stars and Type Ia supernovae. She also gathered and analysed images in different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and applied stellar synthesis codes to study stellar populations. “The work carried out by Martina will help assess possible uncertainties in cosmic distance measurements, which will allow us to better understand the expansion of the Universe,” explains Lluís Galbany, principal investigator of the group.

In parallel, a new research group joined these placements by hosting two students, the CommSensLab (UPC). Led by researchers Mercè Vall-llossera and Núria Duffò, the group hosted Pol Orriols and Bernat Salavert, who collaborated with the team on remote sensing applied to Earth Observation. During the placement, the students worked with satellite images — mainly from Sentinel-2 and SMOS — using tools such as Google Earth Engine, QGIS, and Python programming to process and analyse environmental data. In this way, they were able to acquire skills in geospatial data processing, time series analysis, and the use of remote sensing platforms, with direct applications in environmental management and the study of climate change.

In addition to their direct participation in each of the research groups, the students had the opportunity to attend the NewSpace Economy Congress 2025, where they were able to witness first-hand the growth of the Catalan and international space sector. The experience allowed them to meet professionals and students from the field and to discover the wide range of areas in which one can work within the space sector.