A team of Harrow pupils are reaching for the stars after winning a national competition to design a spacecraft for NASA.
Four young scientists from Alpha Prep School won this year’s ‘Generation Beyond Challenge’, which was organised by Lockheed Martin and Discovery Education.
The challenge – a UK first – was launched to schools last year as part of a new STEM education programme to inspire the next generation of astronauts. Children were asked to stretch their imagination by designing a habitation module for Orion, the NASA spacecraft which will take the first crew to Mars in the 2030s.
Pupils Helia Najafi (9), Veer Thakkar (11), Krisha Shah (11) and Adithya Raghuraman (10) scooped the top prize with ‘Andromeda’, a colourful 3D model for astronauts to live and work on the planet Mars. The design featured details such as an artificial gravity shower and judges said that the children’s design showed “fantastic teamwork and inspiration”.
The school, which is “absolutely over the moon”, hosted a special celebration assembly for the pupils and their parents. They received iPads and science magazine subscriptions as prizes, with the school receiving a £5,000 STEM grant.
Over 160 pupils from across the UK took part in the challenge, which was judged by a panel of teachers, academics and space scientists.
