Shawdesh Desk:

Bangladesh has become the world champion at NASA Space Apps Challenge for second time as ‘Team Mohakash’ from Khulna topped mission concept category.

The team secured the position by beating 4,534 teams from 162 countries, local organizer BASIS said in a news release on Saturday.

Earlier in 2018, Team Olik from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) won the award in the ‘best use of data’  at the global competition.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US space agency, organised the hack-a-thon programme where students solve the problems related to space and earth developing prototype by coding computer language.

The team was champion from Khulna division in national round of the international competition organized by Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).

The “ARSS-Advanced Regolith Sampler System”, a tool invented by”Team Mohakash”, will enable astronauts to control the dust that flies freely during the mission to the surface of the aliens. In past human missions to the moon, astronauts had been facing troubles working amid surface dust.

At low gravity, dust particles get easily raised and floated, making it difficult for astronauts to collect samples, as well as ionizing due to cosmic radiation, which could have high possibility of damaging the spacesuit.

The ‘Team Mohakash’ invents an effective solution to this problem, inventing a toolset that traps these dust particles in a closed chamber and prevents the dust from floating.

Regarding the project, Team Mohakash leader Sumit Chanda said the team have worked on a solution that the world’s largest space research organizations including NASA are still researching.

“We have been working on this project since last year, with BASIS as the biggest contributor. They have always helped us to achieve our goals through direct mentorship,” he said.

Appreciating the achievement, ICT State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak said Bangladesh team has become the world champion for the second time.

“I congratulate the team Mohakash. This achievement is another unique example of the progress of Digital Bangladesh,” he said.

Basis President, Syed Almas Kabir said the achiement of Team Mahakash is major milestone in our endeavors as BASIS continues the journey of building a Digital Bangladesh.

Senior Vice President, Farhana A. Rahman expressed gratitude to the ogranisers including BASIS President Syed Almas Kabir, advisor Ariful Hasan Apu, Mahdi-uz-Zaman, local judges and project managers

More than eight hundred projects were submitted from Bangladesh in this year’s edition of the international competition of NASA Space Apps Challenge, organized in collaboration with BASIS and BASIS Students Forum.

After scrapping the incomplete projects, representatives from 125 projects participated in the 48-hour hackathon, and the best 27 projects were nominated by NASA from Bangladesh.

It was organized on 9 cities of Bangladesh (Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Rangpur, Mymensingh and Cumilla).For more information on the global winners, go to https://2021.spaceappschallenge.org/awards/global-finalists.