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High School Students Create Winning Design for NASA's First Flight of Orion

Congratulations to the Governor’s School for Science and Technology (GSST)! The GSST Team, which includes three York County School Division (YCSD) students, was named the winner of NASA’s high school Exploration Design Challenge (EDC)! The announcement came during a ceremony held at the opening of the 2014 USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington. Team ARES is comprised of the following students:

Abid Rizvi - York High School
Sajan Sheth - Tabb High School
Daniel McNamara - Tabb High School
Anna Montgomery - Phoebus High School Hampton
Christopher Dobyns - Bethel High School, Hampton

The EDC was developed to engage students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by inviting them to help tackle one of the most significant dangers of human space flight -- radiation exposure.

"This is a great day for Team ARES – you have done a remarkable job," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who helped announce the winning team. He continued, "I really want to congratulate all of our finalists. You are outstanding examples of the power of American innovation. Your passion for discovery and the creative ideas you have brought forward have made us think and have helped us take a fresh look at a very challenging problem on our path to Mars."

Team ARES now will work with the NASA and Lockheed Martin spacecraft integration team to have the product of their experimental design approved for spaceflight. Once the equipment is approved, engineers will install it onto Orion’s crew module. Later this year, when Orion launches into orbit during Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), Lockheed Martin will host Team ARES at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to watch their experiment launch into space.

During the EFT-1, Orion will fly through the Van Allen Belt, a dense radiation field that surrounds the Earth in a protective shell of electrically charged ions. Understanding and mitigating radiation exposure during Orion’s flight test can help scientists develop protective solutions before the first crewed mission. After EFT-1, the students will receive data indicating how well their design protected a dosimeter, an instrument used for measuring radiation exposure.