Palakollu Girl’s Prestigious Journey To NASA

The 19-year-old Jahnavi Dangeti is a part of the NASA Citizen Scientists programme and she assisted in discovering asteroids in the Kuiper belt, one of which has been named 2020 PR13. The young lady has also made all of us proud with her yet another mean feat as she is now the first Indian to have been a part of NASA’s prestigious International Air and Space Program (IASP).

To the unversed, the International Air and Space Program is a five-day educational program that involves teamwork, problem-solving and communication, among students and experts. This five-day programme was conducted in November 2021 at Kennedy Space Center in Alabama, USA. Jahnavi hails from Palakollu in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh and she has always dreamt of space and setting foot on Mars.

She was chosen as the Mission Director for Team Kennedy and was a part of a 16-member team that was successful in launching a miniature rocket into the sky. “The NASA team will make changes and send it to the International Space Station. The idea was to develop a mechanism that will work in both high and low-temperature environments,” shared Jahnavi, who is now pursuing her BTech in Electronics and Communications and is in her second year.

She got trained to be an astronaut and was given zero gravity and underwater rocket launch training under former NASA astronaut Kenneth D Cameron. Only 60 enthusiasts from around the world are selected for the programme and Jahnavi, who is a classical dancer and knows Karate as well, is one of them. She is delighted to be the first Indian to be selected for this programme.