In a first, Odisha's NaPSAT team gets selected for NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge

For the first time in history, a team of school students from India has been selected to participate in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge, scheduled in April 2021.

The Navonmesh Prasar Student Astronomy Team (NaPSAT) from Odisha, comprising 10 school students, has been selected for this challenge. NaPSAT is a Bhubaneswar-based interdisciplinary team of space enthusiasts, who engage in projects ranging from designing space systems, rovers, rockets, satellites, and astronomy to participating in various international events.

The Navonmesh Prasar Foundation created a team of students during the COVID-19 pandemic and trained them for the NASA Rover Challenge, said its founder, Anil Pradhan. The team is designing a rover that can move on the surface of Mars and it would be a human-powered rover, he added. 

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"We got the invitation from NASA and the event will take place in April 2021. We are preparing a rover and will send it to NASA. We will go there and compete with other teams. We are also raising funds," Pradhan said.

Tanvi Mallick, a Class 9 student, who is part of the team was glad to share about her selection. She said the team will represent India in the competition to be held in Alabama in April next year.  Speaking about the technicalities of their design, another team member Ankan Mondal said that their rover can handle the weight of two people while moving on terrains of Mars and the moon.

"We will be making human-powered rover for Mars and moon. We have to ensure that rover can handle the weight of two people. 100 teams are participating in the event," he said. 

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NASA's recent discovery

In a groundbreaking discovery, NASA confirmed on October 31 that its Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) found water trapped inside the sunlit surface of the Moon. Confirming that there could be more water on the moon than previously thought of, NASA said, water is not limited to cold, shadowed lunar places but instead is distributed across the entire lunar surface. 

“SOFIA has detected water molecules (H2O) in Clavius Crater, one of the largest craters visible from Earth, located in the Moon’s southern hemisphere,” NASA revealed in an official release to the press.

It added, that the space administration’s scientific team had detected some form of hydrogen earlier, but all the previous observations have now been confirmed.

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(With inputs from agency)