Indian students bag Nasa awards for human exploration rover challenge

NEW DELHI: Nasa on Monday awarded two Indian students' teams from Delhi-NCR and Mumbai for human exploration rover challenge. The KIET Group of Institutions from Delhi-NCR won the award in "Crash and Burn" while Kanakia International School from Mumbai received the "Rookie of the Year" award.
The HERC marked its 30th anniversary as a Nasa competition, with over 600 students and 72 teams from around the world participating.Parish Episcopal School of Dallas in the United States won first place in the high school division, while the University of Alabama in Huntsville won the college/university crown.
Highlighting the importance of the event, HERC activity lead for the Nasa's Office of Stem engagement Vemitra Alexander said, "This student design challenge encourages the next generation of scientists and engineers to engage in the design process by providing innovative concepts and unique perspectives."
"While celebrating the 30th anniversary of the challenge, HERC also continues Nasa's legacy of providing valuable experiences to students who may be responsible for planning future space missions, including crewed missions to other worlds," Alexander added.
The annual engineering competition, one of Nasa's longest-standing challenges, concluded on April 19 and 20.
The teams represented 42 colleges and universities, as well as 30 high schools, from 24 US states, Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 13 other nations, including India. The teams received points for completing a half-mile obstacle course, mission-specific work challenges, and repeated safety and design evaluations with Nasa experts, according to a media release.
One of Nasa's eight Artemis student challenges, the HERC aims to further the objectives of Nasa's Artemis program, which aims to land the first woman and person of color on moon.