To foster and promote the awareness of space technologies and applications among students, EPFL offers since 2005 a Minor in Space Technologies. The course is hosted by the Electrical Engineering and Electronics Section (SEL) but open to the entire EPFL student community.
The main goals of the Minor in Space Technologies are:
- To offer students the possibility to strengthen their knowledge of space related research
- To promote space applications, technology and science based on the large interest raised by space
- To foster a strong educational platform in the space sector, in parallel to the development of academic and research projects at EPFL (e.g. SwissCube, Cleanspace)
We also held an info session on Sept. 16, 2025. If you want even more information and details about the Minor in Space Technologies, you can watch the video here.
Fast travel to:
guidelines
ESA Academy
For students taking European Space Agency Academy Classes and want to add the credits into their study plan:
- You MUST notify the EPFL Academic Services of your registration to an ESA Academy Class before the date of the class.
Make sure to contact the student services in advance to let them know (and also add your Head of Section and espace@epfl.ch in copy).
If you don't contact them before, the credits offer through ESA classes will not be accepted into your study plan. - After the training is finished, you will have to make a presentation of the income of the training to the head of the Minor in Space technologies, prof. Jean-Paul Kneib.
Contact espace@epfl.ch to organise a meeting with prof. Kneib.
list of courses
2025-2026
Credits offered: 103
Teachers, credits and period of the classes are subjected to change.
Classes that have been taken during bachelor or master CANNOT be taken again in the minor.
Classes with this symbol * are space focused and are highly recommended.
As a reminder, you can check out the flow chart below recommending a logical pattern of classes selection if you specifically want to focus on Space Systems:
project
Each student planning to take the Minor can select a project equivalent to 12 ETCS. A list of projects offered by eSpace is available HERE.
Subjects could also be proposed by an EPFL lab or the students themselves (as long as the project is space related).
Note that if you are proposing your own project, it needs to be supervised by a lab at EPFL. The Minor project cannot be done within an external entity.
It is highly recommended to take the project after the classes, i.e. in the third semester of Master. Once the title of the project has been selected and agreed with project supervisors, the student needs to register for the project on IS-Academia and can inform us about their project via this form.
(Note that this form is not mandatory to fill in but is greatly appreciated as we do not have access to all the registrations on IS-Academia).
If you choose to do your project in an EPFL lab and are unsure how to register on IS-Academia, please contact us via the form below.
enrolment
1. The student should register on IS-Academia for the Minor and corresponding classes.
If your Section is asking for eSpace's validation before you register for the Minor, please download this form and send it back to us filled in with your chosen list. eSpace's academic director Prof. Jean-Paul Kneib will review the chosen classes and if approved, will sign the form that you can return to your section.
2. The studend ensures that the selected classes total at least 30 ECTS (with a highly recommended plan of 18 ECTS classes + 12 ECTS project).
3. Deadline to register: before the end of the first semester of each students’ Master studies
contact
We are happy to answer your questions and comments.
Fill out the form below and we will get back to you as soon as possible.