Madurai student wins contest,set to meet NASA astronauts in US

Dhaanya is among the three winners of the National Space Science Contest 2019, an online science aptitude and general knowledge test conducted earlier this year by the US-based Go4Guru, an online tutoring and educational tour services company.

The other two Indian students who won the NASA trip are Sai Pujitha from Bhashyam Group of Schools in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, and Abhishek Sharma, a student of Jindal Vidya Mandir in Alibaug, Maharashtra. The students were among the thousands of participants of the National Space Science Contest 2019, organised earlier this year.

The winners of the 2019 contest will take part in Go4Guru’s International Space Science Contest, an essay competition, to be held at NASA’s Kennedy Space Station during the first week of October. Five students, who will be adjudged as the winners of the international contest, will each be awarded a scholarship of $10,000 by the Florida Institute of Technology, USA for its courses.

The National Space Science Contest 2020 was launched on Tuesday. Former NASA Astronaut Don Thomas, who served as the International Space Station Programme, overseeing NASA experiments performed on the International Space Station, launched the contest, in the presence of Dr N Veeraiyan, the founder and chancellor of Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences.

Thomas will also visit various educational institutions in Tamil Nadu, in association with Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences. He will also meet students at various schools in Tamil Nadu, and other parts of India between August 28 and October 4.

The first talk is scheduled to take place at Saveetha Dental College on Wednesday.