Team Space4Life will fly Cyanobacteria to moon

TeamIndus Foundation is pleased to announce that Team Space4Life will send an independent experiment to the lunar surface under the Lab2Moon Challenge. Team Space4Life proposed an experiment to test the effectiveness of using a colony of Cyanobacteria as a shield against harmful radiation in space. Team Space4Life, based in Naples, Italy will now work closely with TeamIndus engineers to make the experiment space worthy for the journey of a lifetime aboard the TeamIndus Spacecraft launching for the Moon later this year.

Launched mid last year, Lab2Moon, a global challenge for youth, had inspired more than 3,000 teams to send in ideas for experiments. The finalists included experiments examining the widest range of problems while seeking to enhance human understanding of what it takes to become a sustainable multi planetary species.

An international jury comprising Dr. K Kasturirangan, former chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, Dr. Alain Bensoussan, former president of Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and former chairman of Council, European Space Agency and Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan, professor in the Departments of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University, examined the prototypes of these experiments in granular detail over the last three days in Bangalore before awarding Team Space4Life with this rare honour.

Bio-pharmaceutical major Biocon has already signed up with TeamIndus Foundation to take the Team ZΩI experiment to the Moon.

Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon said, “Biocon has been committed to inspiring youngsters to take up Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Our partnership with TeamIndus for Lab2Moon is intended to propel that mission to the next level. Humanity moves forward when young minds are challenged to solve big problems. That is evident from the quality of the teams on display for the final round of Lab2Moon."