Four Australian high school students and a teacher will attend a prestigious six-day International Space Camp in the United States in July, after winning Astronaut Al Worden Endeavour Scholarships through the worldwide Kallman Group, organiser of the USA Partnership Pavilion at Avalon 2023.
The group, known as “Mission Crew 10 – Team Australia”, will join teams from the United States, Bahrain and France at Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the official visitor centre for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, from 2-7 July.
They will experience a variety of astronaut training exercises, engineering challenges and team-building activities, culminating in an extended-duration simulated space mission.
To apply for the scholarship, students were asked to define spacecraft systems to help sustain 35 people on a three-year journey to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Entries were judged by a panel including professors from Swinburne and Curtin Universities and the CSIRO, and the Head of Space and Satellite at Amazon Web Services.
The winning students are:
- Arabella Darlington – Brisbane, Queensland
- Toby Fealy – Mareeba, Queensland
- Elliot Powell – Sydney, New South Wales
- Zoe Bremner – Launceston, Tasmania
Winning teacher Sam Nikolsky, Operations Manager STEM Education at Victoria’s Wyndham Tech School, was presented with his Endeavour Scholarship bomber jacket by US Ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, at Avalon 2023.
Kallman Group’s non-profit Kallman Foundation is the administrator of the Al Worden Endeavour Scholarship Foundation, teaming with industry organisations around the world to find students and teachers for scholarship consideration. In Australia Kallman teamed with the American Chamber of Commerce in
Australia (AmCham) to find students and Avalon 2023 organiser AMDA Foundation to find an accompanying teacher.
AMDA Foundation CEO Justin Giddings said the Astronaut Al Worden Endeavour Scholarship was a timely means of publicising the growing space industry and attracting the next generation.
“AMDA Foundation is proud to support a program that helps spark a desire for a space industry career among young Australians,” he said.
“To grow and sustain the Australian space industry we need bright young minds with a passion for space and the technologies on which it will depend. The Al Worden Endeavour Scholarship has the potential to turn the spark of interest into a lifelong career.”
AmCham Australia Chief Executive Officer April Palmerlee said the Endeavour Scholarship will be a lifechanging opportunity for the four young Australians to experience a week of hands-on astronaut training, science and engineering challenges, and team-building exercises.
“Australia is embarking on a series of nation-building projects that will require an influx of young, passionate, driven, STEM-skilled Australians to accomplish. Every single student who put themselves forward for this opportunity should be proud of themselves, and they will be the ones pioneering the next generation of breakthroughs in this country,” said Ms Palmerlee.
“A recent AmCham and KPMG report found that accelerating trade between Australia and the United States in the space sector will generate more than 1,300 specialised, high paying jobs by 2030. We will need these inspiring young students to launch our space industry into the future.”
“Space is the domain of cooperation and AmCham is proud to have supported The Endeavour Scholarship’s first ever Team Australia to join the United States, France, and Bahrain at this year’s Space Camp. After such an impressive cohort of applicants, we hope to see Australia become a regular team in The Endeavour Scholarship.”
