By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 5 Aug: The Space Settlement Design Competition (SSDC) is a worldwide inter-school tournament, where students from across the globe get an opportunity to propose a human settlement that can function in space. It acts as an experience that simulates the aerospace industry, where participants are provided with a task to design innovative space cities that accomplish the requested specifications from the judges.
From 2022 to 2023, the Doon School Team has successfully proposed two different versions of ‘Bellevistat’, a large-scale colony that conducts major industrial operations in cis-lunar space, as well as being able to accommodate an increasing population; ‘Arial’, the first ever significant moon-orbiting settlement that acts as a spaceport for cargo and transportation between spacecraft and lunar landing vehicles, and ‘Alaskol’, the first large business-operating space city on the Earth’s Moon, that acts as a substantial refinery source for lunar materials and provide quintessential services to further-developing communities. Their persevering journey first began when the school achieved qualifiers for the preliminary round, following towards the Indian Nationals Round (INSSDC) as first runners-up and then finally winners. Reaching the Asian regionals Round (ARSSDC), Rohan Taneja was elected as President for the company ‘Dougeldyne Astrosystems’, which came victorious as they were adjudged Winners.
Finally, at the International Round (ISSDC) held at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, USA from 28th July to 31st July 2023, The Doon School team representing ‘Grumbo Aerospace’ emerged as Runners-up with Rohan Taneja as Vice President of Engineering, Keshav Bagrodia as Director of Operations and Infrastructure, and Tanmay Gupta as Director of Human Factors. The team was escorted and guided by Doon School Master Vratik Upadhyay.
