The Day My Project Went to Space

From whiteboard to orbit to science

Hi there! It’s Tivadar from The Palindrome.

Today’s post is a very special one, written by my friend Miklós, whom I met during our PhD years. (Which was more than ten years ago. I feel old.) He is one of the smartest people I know, and he’s been doing impressive research projects since then.

One of his latest projects made the news recently, because the data collection took place on the International Space Station (ISS). This is interesting in itself, but what you rarely see is the “backend” side of science, the stuff that don’t make the news, but makes or breaks a research project of this scale.

What follows is a deep-dive report on the entire lifecycle of a space-bound project:

• grant proposal (moving from a whiteboard to orbit),

• agile problem solving (like jumping hoops to meet Apple Store regulations),

• stakeholder coordination (managing the logistics between international space agencies),

• project management (handling “no second chance” execution under the pressure of shifting launch windo…