6 Indian Students Picked For NASA's Rover Building Challenge 2024: Here's How They Were Chosen

In a matter of pride for India, six of the nation's citizens have been selected to participate in NASA's Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC).

Scheduled to take place from April 18 to 20, HERC is the engineering design challenge of the American space agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

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Who are the selected few?

Lokesh Kumar from Tauru, Nuh studying in Class 10; Pallavi studying in Class 10 from Badshahpur, Gurugram; Arun Kumar from Faridabad; Utkarsh from Greater Noida; Om from Noida and Rohit Pal from Panipat are the lucky few who have been selected for the programme.

The students will now be taken to the American space agency NASA.

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The challenge for students is to design, build, and test human-powered rovers capable of traversing challenging terrains and completing mission-focused tasks.

The students have been selected by the M3M Foundation, an organisation committed to promoting education, healthcare, and skill development in communities across India.

M3M Foundation is supporting Team Kaizel to represent the country in NASA¡¯s Human Exploration Rover Challenge 2024.

According to information on the NASA website, teams are chosen from various regions of the country through a competition where they earn points by successfully completing design reviews, creating and assembling a rover that fulfills all challenge criteria, and navigating through course obstacles while accomplishing mission tasks.

The team with the most accumulated points in each category throughout the project year, for both high school and college/university divisions, are declared the winner in their respective division.

Kaizel's mission statement reads, "With the cosmos as their canvas, these young scientists are not merely chasing stars; they are propelling dreams into the vast expanse of the universe, carving a path of innovation that transcends boundaries."

What is NASA's Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC)?

Every year, the Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) organised by NASA presents an engineering design challenge.

The primary goal is to involve students globally in the upcoming stage of human space exploration.

As outlined on NASA's official website, HERC takes inspiration from both the Apollo and Artemis missions, focusing on the design, construction, and testing of technologies, as well as navigating through distinct environmental terrains.

The Apollo program, was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by NASA which succeeded in preparing and landing the first men on the Moon from 1968 to 1972.

NASA Artemis Mission/ nasa.gov

The Artemis program is a Moon exploration program led by NASA, marking the agency's return to lunar exploration in 2017 after the conclusion of the Apollo program five decades earlier.

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