Indian students bag NASA awards for Human Exploration Rover Challenge

Two Indian students’ teams from the New Delhi area and Mumbai have won awards from the NASA for the Human Exploration Rover Challenge. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said on Monday that the KIET Group of Institutions, Delhi-NCR, had won the annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) prize in the "Crash and Burn" category.

The "Rookie of the Year" honor went to the Mumbai-based Kanakia International School. The HERC marked its 30th anniversary as a NASA competition, with participation from over 600 students with 72 teams from across the globe. The University of Alabama in Huntsville won the college/university division, while Dallas' Parish Episcopal School placed first in the high school section.

One of NASA's oldest yearly competitions, the engineering competition, concluded on April 19 and 20 at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, which is close to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The competing teams came from 24 US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 13 foreign nations, including India, as well as 42 colleges and institutions and 30 high schools.

According to a press release, the teams received points for successfully completing a half-mile obstacle course, performing mission-specific task tasks, and finishing several safety and design evaluations with NASA experts.

The HERC is one of the NASA’s eight Artemis Student Challenges reflecting the goals of the Artemis programme, which seeks to land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon while establishing a long-term presence for science and exploration. 

By offering these tasks, the NASA hopes to inspire students to major in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics and to become engineers or mathematicians.