KTH Space Center coordinates and promotes space-related activity at several KTH departments, with an overarching objective of establishing KTH as a "Space University" and a hub for Swedish space research and technology.
Alfvén Lecture 2025: How to Inhabit the Solar System
Welcome to this years Alfvén lecture! During the lecture Dr. Pekka Janhunen will speak about how to inhabit the solar system! Make sure to come a bit earlier to not miss coffee and "fika".
📢 Alfvén Lecture 2025
🎙️ Title:How to inhabit the solar system
👤 Speaker: Dr. Pekka Janhunen, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki
Mars is often considered as a settlement target, but it has a problem of maybe too low gravity (38%) for children to grow to full-strength adults. Mars is also smaller than Earth so even in the best case it could expand our living area only modestly. Gerard O'Neill (1974) proposed to solve the gravity problem by a kilometre-scale rotating cylindrical space habitat which mimics Earth's gravity by the centrifugal force.
A Ceres megasatellite scales up O'Neill's cylinder by attaching many cylinders to a growable frame. Different cylinders are connected by train-like vehicles. Each cylinder hosts a sunlit closed ecosystem with agriculture and e.g. 50000 people living in 100 square kilometre area. Ceres is proposed as the source body because it has nitrogen to make earthlike atmospheres, and ample resources in general.
Why consider such unplanetary living? In addition to paradise-like climate and continuous crops, absence of natural catastrophes like earthquakes is a permanent benefit. Asymptotically, a megasatellite is million times more mass-efficient than planetary living because instead of having 6000 km of rock below our feet we would have only 4 m thick radiation shielding and pressure containing walls around us.
Large-scale migration to such secondary home of mankind would need a lot of spacecraft and propellant. To this end we discuss how to sling raw material from the Moon scalably with the help of the lunar gravity anomalies.
Hosts
Anita Kullen, Head of Division of Space and Plasma Physics, KTH
Christer Fuglesang, Prof. in Space Travel, KTH Space Center
Nickolay Ivchenko, Prof. in Experimental Space Physics, KTH
Andris Vaivads, Prof. in Space Physics at KTH, Rector of Ventspils University of Applied Sciences, Latvia
The lecture is supported by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences through its Nobel Institute for Physics
Seminar: Environmental Control and Life Support, the Long View
On 14th of August 14:15-14:45 KTH Space Center hosted its first space seminar of the school year.
This time Dr. Sherwin Gormly came to KTH to explore how we can keep humans alive in the most extreme environments—even on Mars. He spoke about the cutting-edge water recycling and life support systems making it possible, with insights that also have surprising benefits for life back on Earth.
Known as “The Urine King,” Sherwin Gormly is a former NASA researcher with over 30 years of experience developing cutting-edge water recycling systems for space. He is a senior advisor for Swedish company Hydromars and will, amomg other things, be talking about their current development efforts.
If you missed the seminar you can now watch it
here
!🚀
Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) are essential for sustaining human life beyond Earth’s atmosphere. These integrated systems manage critical functions such as air revitalization, water recovery, and waste recycling within closed habitats. They form the technological backbone for long-duration space missions and provide important models for advancing sustainable resource management on Earth.
In this lecture, Dr. Sherwin Gormly, Senior Advisor on Water ECLSS Engineering at Hydromars, provided a detailed, systems-level perspective on the design and operation of ECLSS. Drawing on decades of experience and data from spaceflight programs, including the International Space Station (ISS), Sherwin explored key engineering aspects such as metabolic mass balancing, system scalability, and the implementation of regenerative water technologies capable of supporting missions ranging from weeks to multiple years.
The talk covered critical trade-offs between expendable and regenerative components, the influence of gravity environments - from microgravity to lunar and Martian gravity - on system performance, and the use of modelingtechniques to optimize life support architectures for future space habitats.
Sherwin also presented Hydromars’ current development efforts focused on lightweight, energy-efficient water recycling systems designed to enable continuous human presence in space. This discussion will highlight how advances in ECLSS engineering contribute to the broader goal of sustainable space exploration while inspiring innovation relevant to environmental challenges on Earth.
Sherwin Gormly is a veteran researcher formerly at NASA’s Ames Research Center, where he led the NASA Water Recycle Laboratory for five years. With over 30 years of experience in Space Life Support (ECLSS) and regenerative water process research, Sherwin has hands-on expertise in the fabrication and engineering of ECLSS prototypes and flight experiment hardware, including membrane-based solutions for treating wastewater and urine in both microgravity and terrestrial settings.
Sherwin holds a PhD in Civil Engineering (Water Processes), is a Licensed Professional Engineer (PE), and previously served as a USAF Captain and launch officer. He has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications, and earned the nickname “The Urine King”, popularized by Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. He also contributed to NASA’s technology innovation efforts, such as “Waterwalls for Life Support” (a 2017 NASA Invention of the Year Honorable Mention).
Winners of the best space-thesis work 2024
KTH Space Center has announced the winners of the best thesis awards at the advanced and basic levels for 2024!
At the basic level, we extend our congratulations to Amer Avdic and Alfred Mjörnheim, who each receive 5000 SEK for their study investigating how light pulses from neutron stars, caused by their magnetic and rotational axes, can be used to gather information about their properties and behavior.
The prize for the best thesis at the advanced level and 15,000 SEK goes to Simon Thor for his thesis focusing on improving simulations of tau lepton decays to enable more accurate observations of tau neutrinos with the IceCube detector at the South Pole, by integrating high-precision simulations from Tauola.
Congratulations to the winners for their interesting and valuable theses!
Take the opportunity to listen to Amer och Alfred's presentation during Space Rendezvous on Thursday the 20th of Mars! Simon Thor will be presenting his work later this autumn.
Interested in the use of AI for monitoring environmental changes?
During World Space Week 2024, KTH Space Center hosted a seminar titled "Earth Observation Big Data and Deep Learning for Global Environmental Change Monitoring," with
Dr. Yifang Ban
as the speaker. She presented groundbreaking
methods
for monitoring environmental changes using satellite data and AI, focusing on wildfires and urbanization.
If you missed the seminar, you can watch it here:
For those interested in delving deeper into the topic, KTH also offers several courses in geoinformatics and remote sensing, including these, where Dr. Yifang Ban is the course coordinator:
After completing one of these courses, it is also possible to do your thesis within this exciting field of research.
Support for space projects at KTH
We want to remind you that KTH Space Center offers the possibility to apply for financial support for groups or individuals at KTH who wish to carry out any space-related projects or operations.
The support is primarily aimed for new initiatives but ongoing projects and activities can also be considered. All employees and students at KTH are welcome to apply. Amounts of up to 50,000 kr is normal, in some cases higher sums can be considered.
Applications should be sent to rymdcenter@sci.kth.se
A look inside KTH Space Technology Laboratory
The KTH Space Technology Laboratory is a central part of KTH Space Center. The laboratory offers state-of-the art environments with laboratory equipment and technical staff with the aim is to strengthening the role of KTH within international research and space technology. Want to take a look inside the laboratory and what it has to offer? We now present our new video of the KTH Space Technology Laboratory!
