MA Student's Design Could Visit The International Space Station

Westford MA

29 September, 2020

2:23 PM

Description

WESTFORD, MA — A patch designed by a Massachusetts 7th Grader could make its way to the International Space Station. The Mission 14 payload, designated "Apollo" in honor of the 50th anniversary of NASA's Apollo program, is set to launch this fall or late spring on SpaceX-21. The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education at the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education is sponsoring a contest to determine which two designs, among 54 finalists from schools across the world, will be affixed to the outside of a ship. Of the designs that made it into the finals, only one came from Massachusetts. And that was Westford's Finn Paquette's design. The contest opened Monday and the deadline to vote is 3 p.m. Oct. 1. The 12 year old goes to Stony Brook School in Westford and his family is pretty excited for him. "Hopefully we can catch up to Texas!" said Jill Toney, Finn's mother. Finn's design. Courtesy Jill Toney If he wins, in addition to being affixed to the outside of the ship, his artwork will be made into a cloth patch, flown to space, and signed by the astronauts on the international space station. "Replicas of these patches will be affixed to the outside of the Mission 14 payload box containing the 33 flight experiments," according to the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. Paquette's work is the second section of submissions under the upper grade level category. Although names are not included, his submission is listed as the Westford, Massachusetts submission. As of Monday, some 5,890 people had voted, putting the Westford student's patch design in second place with 714 votes. The submission from Lufkin, Texas was in first place with 1,411 votes. The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a national program delivered at the local level, with student teams across a community designing and proposing real experiments to fly in orbit as the core activity. The Stony Brook School has been a part of the program. To vote: SSEP Mission 14 Contest vote.