Oaklands students reach for stars at Kennedy Space Centre
Students of Oaklands Community College once again did their school and Edenderry proud in the Student Astronaut Challenge. They travelled to the Kennedy Space Centre in Orlando, Florida last week.
They are only the second International team ever to do so following in the steps the previous team from Oaklands. They had big shoes to fill as the last team won the lab challenge, came second in the simulator challenge and came fourth overall. They were up to the challenge though.
The team consisted of Odhran Cully, Diarmuid Egan, Kacper Miniszewski, Stephen Molloy, Maggie O’Connell and Kai Reilly and their teacher Ms Guinan.
First up was the Engineering challenge on Thursday. They had 45 minutes to solve a number of questions on electrical power systems and solar arrays on the International Space Station. They then had to present their solutions to NASA engineers. They made a great account of themselves.
Next up was their lab challenge. They had to design an original lab experiment proposal that addressed the problem of growing food on Mars. This was to be submitted a week before the competition and then the students had to present their experiment to the panel of NASA scientists. The experiment they proposed was The Removal of Harmful Perchlorate Salts From Martian Regolith. Again the students presented excellently and the judges were very impressed.
On Friday they participated in the Simulator Challenge where they launched the space shuttle into orbit, orbited the Earth and returned to earth. Again they performed very well with Commander Stephen Molloy landing the shuttle safely on the runway. He was ably assisted in the simulator by pilot Odhran Cully and Flight Engineer Kai Reilly. Throughout the challenge they kept contact with Kacper Miniszewski and Maggie O’Connell in Mission Control who kept them up to date with telemetry checks and other important information.
In the afternoon Kacper and Maggie participated in the Landing Challenge. Both landed the shuttle safely on the runway.
Later that afternoon the places for the semi-finals were announced. The disappointment of not making the simulator semi-finals was soon overshadowed by the announcement that they had reached the final of the Landing Challenge. This was to take place early Saturday.
Again Kacper and Maggie made a great team, landing the shuttle safely on the runway despite the extra challenge of a night landing thrown in in the final.
They had the opportunity to see a real launch as Space X were launching a rocket to send supplies to the International Space Station.
After the finals of the simulator all teams gathered as the winners were announced. Oaklands were announced as winners of the landing challenge, and came second in the lab presentation by the tightest of margins and Highest Scoring Guest Competitior. Next up the overall winners were announced and Oaklands Community College were announced as third place overall winners.
The team got to explore the Kennedy Space Centre, did a bus tour and got to see the Atlantis Shuttle. This was one of the highlights of the trip. On Sunday before they returned home they got a well-deserved treat of a trip to Universal Studios thanks to the organisers of the Student Astronaut Challenge.