Mumbai: With three missions headed towards Mars — NASA’s Perseverance, UAE’s Hope and China’s TianWen-1 — IIT Bombay also pitched in with its own share of effort.
The IIT-B Mars Rover team, led by Prathuk Joshi and Laher Gada, secured the fourth place in the Indian Rover Design Challenge amid 28 teams from seven countries. The first-of-its-kind competition was organised by the South Asia branch of the US-based Mars Society.
The competition demanded the teams to design rovers fully equipped with technology to deal with harsh and unforgiving Martian conditions.
A document related to the competition said it is “designed for students to explore their mind and spark the innovative design thinking of individuals without putting any constraints on available physical resources,”
The team from Manipal Academy Of Higher Education managed to secure the first place in the competition.