Our Board
Ethan Dyer
President
Ethan is a student at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland, here in Kiruna for an ERASMUS year. He studies Aero-Mechanical Engineering but wants to jump into the deep end of the space industry.
Whilst here, he joined the student project ASTER as the lead mechanical engineer. Within GSO he became the ASTER representative to keep GSO connected and up to date on our ever changing schedule. ASTER has now successfully launched and he took on the fabulous role of President!
GSO centralizes communication between projects allowing us to share orders for parts and ideas. It provides opportunities for collaboration or even friendly competition! It is a fair and democratic way to see that all the projects get what they need from LTU to grow and make the most of the unique opportunities students have on the Kiruna campus. Its amazing to think that us students can create a concept and carry it all the way through to launch it upon a rocket, and GSO provides a vital role in the diplomacy behind it.
Tom Causer
Vice President
Tom is a Spacecraft Design student who began his degree in August 2022. Originally from the small town of Calne in England, he moved to Sweden in 2017 and completed a bachelor degree in General Physics at Lund University. Now a Swedish citizen, his aim is to contribute to Sweden’s space industry in the long-term.
As the Vice President of GSO, his main responsibilities are a mixture of administration, maintaining and building relationships with partners, assisting the President, and hosting kick-off events to help students find student projects to work on.
As a Systems Engineer within the student project of RAVEN, the majority of Tom’s contributions consist of documentation and communication, as well as assisting the Project Manager with administration or planning where needed.
“One of my biggest concerns upon completing my bachelor degree in such a theoretical field was that it would limit my future opportunities to move into a more hands-on field such as engineering. The opportunities and connections advertised here at Kiruna Campus give me a positive outlook for my future career which will hopefully be within the Swedish space industry.
Joining a student project has given me the ability to work with very impressive and hardworking people and develop both soft and hard skills which will be useful in my future career.”
Elena Maria Battistello
Public Relations Officer
Elena is a first-year student of spacecraft design, hailing from Italy. Having completed a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at Politecnico di Milano university, she possesses a strong foundation in the field. In addition to her academic qualifications, she also is GSO’s Public Relations Officer, responsible for keeping followers updated on both the organization and the project it supports.
Elena also serves as a System Engineer for APTAS, where she began with system component testing and is currently focused on writing the documentation for phase D. She finds her work for APTAS to be very rewarding since it provides her with real-life experience in constructing a CubeSat, although she admits that writing documentation is proving to be difficult, it remains engaging.
Oscar Holmsten
Treasurer
Oscar is a Swedish third year space engineering student who moved up to Kiruna from Luleå this January. Before starting his studies, Oscar had been living and working in the Swiss Alps for the last few years, but has now moved back to Sweden to spend some more time in the Scandinavian mountains.
Oscar is the treasurer for GSO, overseeing all the financial administration and reporting. Alongside the ongoing university courses and GSO responsibilities, Oscar is also part of the APTAS project as a member of the mechanical and electrical team. Oscar’s role is to plan, prepare and conduct tests on the hardware to ensure that the components will perform as expected once the payload is launched into space.
Oscar thinks the student projects at LTU space campus are a fantastic opportunity for students to gain valuable and unique experiences, and hopes that his involvement in GSO will provide the support needed for current and future projects to succeed.
Diego Sanchez de Lerin
ALMA representative
Diego is a first year Spacemasters student at LTU. He’s originally from Madrid, but has been lucky enough to also live in Portugal, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and now Sweden!
As a mechanical engineer in BEXUS project ALMA, Diego makes sure that the experiments don’t fail due to loads and the Arctic balloon environment. He designs structures and use appropriate materials to ensure that good science takes place. As a board representative for GSO, he keeps the organization up to date with ALMA’S progress. He also aims to make sure that all communication between projects, staff, and external parties is respectful, and promote common growth.
Diego thinks that the GSO environment is extremely helpful for the teams, as it allows resources to be shared, knowledge to be transferred, and relationships to last. He wants to make sure that it is kept this way for years to come.
Gabriel Hillertz
APTAS representative
Gabriel is a fifth year engineering student from Sweden’s west coast, studying Space Technology at LTU with a focus on spacecraft and instrumentation. He has been working on APTAS since early 2021 when he joined the telemetry and telecommand (TMTC) subsystem. He has been representing APTAS in GSO since Maj 2022 and became project manager in autumn the same year.
As project manager his main work focuses on making sure information flows properly, both between subsystems within the project and between the project and their supervisors at LTU. Further responsibilities include; setting goals, holding meetings and helping to figure out how documentation and planning in the project should be carried out.
As a GSO representative for APTAS, he allows other projects to make use of the vast knowledge gained during APTAS’s development, and helps form a common foundation from which future projects can start from.
Anshuman Dwarakanath Prahlad
ASTER representative
Anshuman is a first year Spacemasters student at LTU. He is from Bangalore, India. He is part of the electronics team of project ASTER and has been responsible for ensuring the on-board electronics of ASTER for the REXUS 30 campaign are reliable and working as intended. As a board representative for GSO, he keeps the organization up to date on the progress of ASTER.
Anshuman believes GSO can be instrumental in providing support to existing and fledgling projects in terms of resources, technical and non-technical support and hopes the organization shall be able to support the students in their endeavours.
Neus Oliveras Tramunt
FASTER representative
Neus is a first year SpaceMaster Student. She studied Aerospace Vehicles Engineering in Catalunya, where she felt space related courses were lacking as the focus was more on airplanes. That is why she chose to do SpaceMaster, with the extra motivation in living in the Arctic Circle for a year.
Currently, Neus is a member of the student projects Faster and VoidCube, and representative in the GSO board for Faster. As the Faster team recently grew, she is excited to see how GSO can benefit the student project and increase collaboration between members.
Maja Renström
HAMMER representative
Maja is a fourth year space engineering student from Malå which is a small town in the northern part of Sweden. She is the project manager for HAMMER and oversees all work going on in the project and make sure the communication between subgroups within the project is going well. As a project representative her task is to give updates from her project to GSO and vice versa. Being a project manager of an exciting project like HAMMER, she hopes to spread the knowledge about ferrofluids through her project as well as the platform set by GSO!
Finn Hansch
RAVEN representative
Finn is a Spacecraft Design student and part of the student rocket project RAVEN on LTU campus. As project manager he is building on the experience from previous projects during his Bachelor degree in Aerospace engineering in Bremen, Germany.
He is part of the GSO board and is involved in growing the GSO network and involving new companies and partners in the project courses on the LTU campus.
Calum Lonie
VOIDCUBE representative
Calum is an Irish and Breton student who grew up in Brittany. He previously studied Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, and is now a Spacecraft Design student in his first year at LTU. He moved to Kiruna in order to learn engineering skills to add to the scientific techniques he learned while in Glasgow, as well as to experience living above the Arctic Circle. He is a member of two student projects, being a Telemetry Engineer with ASTER and the Lead Software Engineer on Project VOIDCUBE. He is VOIDCUBE’s representative on the GSO board, taking part in weekly meetings, providing updates from the project and taking part in the organisation’s operations.