Wonder Girl: Indian American Middle Schooler Among Finalists in NASA’s Power to Explore Challenge

Indian American student Aadya Karthik of Redmond, Washington is among nine finalists in NASA’s Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for K-12 students featuring the enabling power of radioisotopes.The writing challenge invites K-12th grade students in the United States to learn about radioisotope power systems, a type of nuclear battery integral to many of NASA’s far-reaching space missions, and then write an essay about a new powered mission for the agency. The nine finalists were chosen from 45 semifinalist. This year’s contest received 1,787 submitted entries from 48 states and Puerto Rico.

Karthik, who participated in the grades 5-8 category, explored the legacy left behind by Cassini, a spacecraft that focused on exploring Saturn’s moons in her essay titled “Destiny: A Journey of Resilience.” The Cassini spacecraft “plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere in September 2017, after making many fascinating discoveries,” she wrote. “However, Cassini’s legacy lives on, as its discoveries are still studied by the scientific community, particularly the research it conducted on Saturn’s many moons.” 

Karthik is intrigued by the “mysterious red arcs” spotted on the moon by the Cassini during a flyby in 2015. “Similar features have been observed on Jupiter’s moon Europa, which could potentially host life, hinting at some connection between the two moons,” she wrote. Her flyby spacecraft named Destiny will “investigate this mystery,” she continued. 

Destiny will “attempt to understand the origin and composition of these arcs using a spectrometer and camera system operating in the visible to infrared ranges. Like Cassini, Destiny will use gravity assists of Venus, Earth, and Jupiter to reach Saturn in seven years.” Her spacecraft will use an MMRTG, a type of radioisotope power systems (RPS), “as an efficient and durable power source to survive in the dark environment near Tethys (Saturn’s fifth largest moon), where solar illumination is 1/100th that on Earth.

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Like RPS, she strives to be “resilient, regardless of what challenges come her way,” she wrote. “For any space mission, resilience is key, as challenges are bound to arise. My perseverance will help me devise creative solutions to these obstacles, leading Destiny through a successful mission.”