This is a handbook all about UKSEDS, what we do, and what makes us special. It’s public, but aimed at our volunteers, and is heavily influenced by GitLab’s employee handbook.

A few of the links are only accessible using a UKSEDS account.

You can quickly access this page at ukseds.org/handbook

We are a community who like space

We are UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (UKSEDS), the UK's national student space society. We are a community of students, apprentices, young graduates, and people who are young at heart, all of whom have a passion for space.

The opening lines of our Constitution say it best:

UKSEDS’ fundamental aim is to be a force for good in the space community and the world at large. All people of all backgrounds should be able to participate in humanity’s ongoing journey into space. In this belief UKSEDS is constituted as an organisation for young people and of young people. As much as possible it should be run by, and work to benefit, young people, so that they can gain knowledge, skills, experience, and connections.

We want to see space explored and developed, and we want to be a part of making that happen. Our objectives are set out in our Constitution, and our mission and vision are outlined in this doc. We have been around since 1988, and are part of a global SEDS movement that started in 1980.

We have a couple of thousand members, mostly (but by no means exclusively) Physics and Engineering students who are interested in space. Many are also members of one of our ‘branches’, university student societies that have chosen to affiliate with us. The list of branches can be found on our website, there are a few dozen in total.

Some of our members go the extra mile and volunteer their free time to run our activities, they make up our Staff and Executive Committee ('the Exec').

We do some pretty cool stuff

Here is a non-exhaustive list of some of the things we do:

We’re a bit different

UKSEDS is not like most organisations.