DEHRADUN: A team of students from Dehradun-based University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) has won the prestigious CanSat competition held in Texas this month. The students competed with 40 institutions from across the world, including Ivy league Princeton University, to grab the first position in the largest space-related competition for undergraduate students.In results of the design-build-launch competition declared on June 11, the second rank was also bagged by an Indian university - VIT University in Tamil Nadu. The competition is organized annually by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) with support from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre and US Naval Research Laboratory. Among the institutions that participated this year were Arizona State University, Texas A &M, Virginia Tech and University of Toronto.The students who participated this year had to simulate a science vehicle powered by solar energy that travels through the planetary atmosphere, samples the atmospheric pressure, temperature, speed etc and sends the reading of the gathered data wirelessly to the ground station. A multidisciplinary team of 23 students from UPES under the name ‘Team Astral’ took part in the competition, with 14 of them flying to the US on June 7. Professor Ugur Guven and professor Zozimus Labana from the department of aerospace engineering at UPES mentored the students.Student team member Raghav Garg, at present in Pune for an internship, told TOI over phone, “We feel like we are on top of the world as we beat students from top universities in many countries to win this competition.”Team leader Vipul Mani added, “We had registered to compete in November. Ninety-two teams from across the globe battled it out in the initial phase. We secured the second rank in the first round itself, which boosted our morale to perform better. Top 40 teams were invited to launch their payload in Stephenville in Texas. It was a proud moment for us.”The teams were awarded marks on five aspects: preliminary design review, critical design review, pre-flight readiness, launch operations and post flight review. The UPES team had an overall score of 96.32% and launch operations score of 96.43%. In comparison, the VIT team which won the second spot recorded an overall score of 90.69% and launch operations score of 89.65%.

Stay updated with all the Dehradun Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.