‘Happy that a real astronaut will use my patch on a space trip’
dubai — Mehweesh Kadegaonkar, a Grade 7 student of Delhi Private School, Sharjah, has made a name for herself internationally after winning the 2015 Mission Patch Design Contest.
Launched by Cubes in Space, an international educational programme for schoolchildren, her design was chosen from hundreds of applications sent from different countries. Her idea has been turned into a real mission patch, which will be flown aboard their mission this year. “I found out about the competition through the Cubes in Science website while Googling. I like to find out about competitions through the Web. I am happy a real astronaut will be wearing a patch designed by me on a space trip,” Mehweesh said in an interview.
The 11-year old will also see two of her science experiments rocket into space as part of a special initiative supported by Cubes in Space and Nasa, via their sounding rocket SR-2.
“I am happy to have achieved this which has made my school and parents proud. It took me two to three days to design the patch, which reflects my creativity in accordance with the competition guidelines,” said Mehweesh.
Her experiments aim to test the magnetic properties in space and to study the effects of microgravity, light and radiation on her payload experiments. The Cubes in Space initiative selects 80 experiments from numerous entries from around the world.
These tiny cubes will be launched into space via sounding rocket SR-2 from NASA Wallops Flight Facility in VA, US, in late June 2015. The payload experiments will be returned to the students in September to analyse the effects of spaceflight on their experiments.
“My science teachers were really proud. I would like to be a scientist or in a field of astronomy,” she added.—