The NASSP Honours Colloquium meeting was held on Wednesday 7th May. The thirteen Honours students made short presentations on different satellite missions, ranging from planned to completed missions and involving targets as diverse as the asteroids and Titan, the furthest reaches of the Universe and the most massive explosions ever seen.
Four staff acted as assessors; Peter Dunsby from UCT, and Patricia Whitelock, Peter Martinez and Dave Kilkenny from SAAO. The general feeling of the assessors was that the overall standard was high, with some of the individual presentations being of exceptional quality - especially given the general lack of experience in this area. All involved left with a very positive feeling about the abilities of the NASSP Honours students.
The programme was as follows:
| 09:30 - 10:30 Chair: Dave Kilkenny | ||
| Janus Brink | HUYGENS | Mission to Titan |
| Thapelo Tshenye | PLUTO EXPRESS | Binary mission |
| Ngaka Mphirime | ROSETTA | Asteroid fly-bys and comet intercept |
| 11:00 - 12:20 Chair: Peter Martinez | ||
| Keobakile Sedupane | NEAR | Mission accomplished |
| Alet de Witt | COROT | The search for other Earths |
| Mike Brownstone | MOST | Stellar Seismology |
| 12:20 - 13:00 Chair: Peter Dunsby | ||
| Edward Jurua | XMM/NEWTON | X-ray multi-mirror satellite |
| Webby Miyoba | SWIFT | Gamma-ray outbursts |
| Elme Breedt | INTEGRAL | The search for the Universe's most violent explosions |
| 14:00 - 15:20 Chair: Patricia Whitelock | ||
| Philip Southey | GAIA | God's Atlas |
| Seshini Pillay | HERSCHEL/SPIRE | In search of young galaxies |
| Denise Dale | GALEX | The evolution and history of the Universe |
| Helen Seals | COBE | What's that in the background? |