The Project Work of SEEDS is without any doubts one of SEEDS main qualifying features. The Project Work lasts more than six months and  it is divided into three phases, each one performed in a different SEEDS site and dedicated to the design of specific systems of a wide human space exploration mission. A different topic is identified every year for the Project Work. Past topics of the first five years of SEEDS edition for the Project Work have been: a human initial settlement of the Moon surface, a permanent human Moon base, a Lunar Orbiting–Space Operation Centre, an itinerant exploration mission of the lunar surface and a human mission to an asteroid. The new edition of SEEDS, involving different SEEDS sites (Torino, Toulouse and Leicester) has just started (academic year 2013/2014) and Mars has been selected as main focus of the future Project Works. In particular an incremental approach has been chosen to get to the new destination, which starting from the exploration of Mars from its proximity, i.e. Phobos (topic of the Project Work of the 2013/2014 SEEDS), has moved on with the exploration of the Mars surface (topic of the current Project Work of the 2014/2015 SEEDS) and will very likely proceed with the exploitation of Mars resources, the development of a Mars permanent outpost and the the development of a Mars independent base. The three phases of the Project Work are hosted in a temporal sequence by universities, industries and research centres of the European towns associated in SEEDS. During the whole PW students from Torino, Toulouse and Leicester are grouped together and work in an international and multidisiplinary team. The PW itself is an advanced and ambitious activity, comparable to a “Phase A Study” and intended to produce scientific reports to be diffused worldwide in the space community. Results of the Project Work are generally presented by the students to international conferences or published in scientific journals. A final report ("Executive Summary") followed by a discussion in front of international experts on the Project Work concludes the course. Usually the final Project Work discussion is held at the ESA ESTEC Space Centre in Noordwijk (The Netherlands), where students will stay one week and will visit the facilities. Students will also use CDF facility to verifiy the results of the project work. 

Please note that travels and accommodation for each phase in Torino, Toulouse and Leicester will have to be sustained by the students, so every student must own his/her personal pocket money.