Mumbai school students get NASA award

A class 9 student and a group of three class 7 students from Borivli's Narayana E-techno school have bagged the second prize at the NASA Space Settlement Contest 2017, the winners of which were recently declared.

14-year-old Sarah Thomas won the second prize from the individual category while a group of three class 7 students from the school — Anay Sodani, Swayam Mohanty and Saicharan Bhogavalli bagged the second spot in the small group category. Three more teams from the school found their names in the honourary mention category.

The competition, organised by NASA Ames Research Center in conjunction with the National Space Society sponsors an annual space settlement design contest for 6-12th grade students. As part of the competition, students send their designs for homes in space for judging by NASA engineers and scientists.

Students are now hoping to get an invitation from NASA for a special presentation session that would take place in the last week of May. "We have made a model of a habitat that would be located on the Martian Aerostationary orbit where a population of 16 to 17 thousand can survive by creating earth like conditions" said Swayam Mohanty.

"We are happy that our students' research has reached NASA" said Meenu Chhazed, the school principal.