Master’s in Space Systems ETH Zurich Prepares Students for Lift Off

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What do you get when scientists and engineers on a new degree programme join forces to tinker with new business models, concepts and case studies for the space industry? The Master’s in Space Systems has produced its first graduates, and they join the programme director to reflect on the journey.

No degree programme at ETH Zurich has ever got off the ground this fast: it took just eight months from the start of planning in 2023 to the first student signing up for the Master’s in Space Systems. By September 2024, the first students were already attending lectures, including Kira Seliner and Daniel Schmid.

“What I enjoyed most was that we didn’t just learn technical knowledge but also gained an understanding of the entire spaceflight system,” says Schmid two years later. “I’ve always been fascinated by space,” adds Seliner. “But for a long time, I thought studying this field in Switzerland was unrealistic.” The degree programme, she says, made it possible for her to pursue her career ambitions in space and sustainability.

ETH had wanted to offer a space degree for quite a while. What finally got the programme off the ground was Thomas Zurbuchen, formerly of NASA, returning to Switzerland in 2023 as a professor and head of ETH Zurich Space. Under his direction, the interests of various stakeholders were merged and channelled into the new Master’s in Space Systems. Since then, the number of students has been growing: there were 27 in 2024, 37 in 2025 and 47 starting this fall. There are about three applications for every slot in the programme.

From space communications to robotics

Programme director Simon Stähler describes the past two years as intense. “We had to get a lot of things off the ground at the same time,” he says. “But it was exciting to work with so many people: with professors from different departments, and with students who each bring a very different outlook.”

Over the course of four semesters, students learn about the innerworkings of launch vehicles, satellites, telescopes and spacecraft alongside astrophysics and the fundamentals of Earth and planetary sciences. Students can choose a specialisation in aerospace engineering, space communications, robotics, Earth observation or planetary sciences.

A motley crew of astrophysicists and mechanical engineers

The students come from more than ten different fields of study, which is intentional. The Master’s programme trains systems engineers who can oversee a complex system—such as a satellite—from concept through to operation. “You can't build something that satisfies a scientific mission’s requirements unless you understand where those requirements come from,” says Stähler.

Growth happens in both directions: the scientists gradually find their feet as engineers, while the engineering students get a taste for planetary research. “Suddenly, they were the ones asking the most questions during a lecture on comets,” says Stähler. “Why is there water in there? Why is that important?”

Designing a Mars camera for the ESA

Team projects are at the heart of the programme. One minute, students are dropping a home-built satellite from an aeroplane over Dübendorf; the next, they’re designing a new Mars camera for the European Space Agency (ESA) in a matter of weeks. “It’s exactly this kind of interdisciplinary work in the project groups that brings the students closer together,” says Stähler.

The private sector is involved too: an engineer from the Dübendorf start-up Stellar Alpina teaches propulsion systems. Teaching is also done by staff from EPFL, the University of Bern and the Paul Scherrer Institute. The first graduates of the Master’s programme are now working at aerospace companies in Germany and the United States or pursuing their doctoral studies.

It would be a bit much to claim we’ve got it all figured out.

Simon Stähler, programme director Master’s in Space Systems

Trial by fire 

The team keeps tweaking the programme as it goes. “We wanted to hit the ground running so we could see first-hand what works and what doesn’t,” says Stähler. That fits the thinking behind what’s known as New Space: the young, commercial end of the space industry, where development happens in quick, short cycles.

That’s how the team realised the first semester was simply overloaded. “Learning to work under pressure matters,” says Stähler. “But past a certain point, quality starts to slip, teaching included.” So one course now stretches across two semesters rather than being squeezed into one. The team leans heavily on teaching assistants from the more advanced cohort, who coach the project groups and design exercises of their own.

More startups, more applications from universities of applied sciences

The ETH Space team wants to give students a bigger nudge towards starting their own businesses, with the ZKB Philanthropy Foundation's “Lift Off Challenge” as one possible route. There, teams receive seed funding and mentoring to turn an idea into a business

Looking ahead, Stähler hopes that more Bachelor’s degree graduates from universities of applied sciences will apply for the Master’s programme. “Students from universities of applied sciences have often already been in the workplace for two or three years and know how to put ideas into practice,” he says. “That can be very enriching.”

His verdict after the first graduating class? “It would be a bit much to claim we’ve got it all figured out,” says Stähler, who notes that new challenges keep popping up. “It's a bit overwhelming sometimes, but it's still hugely exciting.”