In January, 2018, a team from Delhi Public School, R K Puram had won the Asian Regional Space Settlement Design Competition. Due to their exceptional performance, a team of 12 members comprising of Ananya Ashta, Bhavya Khandelwal, Kushagra Gupta, Mehek Manish Shah, Natasha Arya, Shiv Sethi, Shrijita Anand, Udit Malik,Vinamr Loomba Sachdeva, Gunjan Anand, Aditya Vikram Singh and Tarun Patra, was invited by Ms Anita Gale, Co- founder, Space Settlement Design Competition, to represent Asia at the International Space Settlement Design Competition. It was held at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, USA, between 27 – 31 Jul , 2018.
Before leaving for USA, the team visited the Honourable Vice President of India and the Chief Minister of Delhi to seek their blessings.
During the competition, students got a chance to attend technical sessions organized by reputed NASA & Boeing engineers involved in known Space missions —the Space Shuttle and Apollo programs— such as Norman Chaffee and Anita Gale.
The team was paired up with high school students from the USA, UK, Australia, Argentina and Uruguay to constituting to the company “Grumbo Aerospace”, with NASA engineers acting as the ‘CEO’s and ‘Advisors’ of their company. After a gruelling 43-hour final, working on a moon surface city meant for research into terraforming, the company emerged as International Winners.
DPS RK Puram won this prestigious International Competition as part of the winning “Grumbo Aerospace” team. This is for the first time the school won this renowned competition, where 30 reputed schools with brilliant students from around the world participated. Ms Rupa Das accompanied the team as their advisor. This would not have been possible without the constant encouragement of the school Principal, Ms. Vanita Sehgal, and the support of the Chairman of Delhi Public School Society , Shri V.K.Shunglu.
