Mumbai youth Saumil Vaidya’s project Team EARS has been shortlisted by TeamIndus, India’s first private lunar mission. Vaidya is an alumnus of Swami Vivekananda High School, Borivili and he worked on the projects EARS Electrostatics Active Radiation Shield with Aishwarya Mungale, a student at Goa University, and Aniket Kamat of Kolhapur.
A total of 3000 entries were submitted to the TeamIndus Lab2Moon contest where EARS along with an Italian project was declared as the co-winner on March 15, 2017. TeamIndus is the only Indian team competing for the prestigious Google Lunar X prize of $30 million.
“I had been preparing for the project since last August and I met my team mates Aniket Kamat and Aishwarya Mungale in our amateur club Gaganbhedi where we discussed the project and took the idea forward. Our project was among the 7 best projects among 3000 entries. And I’m overwhelmed to have actually emerged as a co-winner to fly to the moon. I had previously worked on a space project by Cansat and doing it again was a great experience. Our only concern now is to get a sponsorship of Rs. 4 crores by April 15,” Saumya spoke in an interview to InUth.
Saumil who works in Pune told that he prepared the initial draft for the project while at college. He participated in many aerospace workshops to understand the intricate dynamics of space missions. The project which weighs mere 250 gm is expected to be submitted by October 2017 and will be then sent to the moon on December 28, 2017, from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
