Kshitij Mall from Nagpur headed the prize-winning team while Kerala-born Ashwati Das played a key role in the project. The contest was organized by the US-based Inspiration Mars Foundation.
Kshitij and Ashwati are students of Purdue University in the US which has produced scores of astronauts including the first man to walk on moon Neil Armstrong.
In an e-mail interview to TOI, Kshitij who studied at Mount Carmel Convent School in Maharshtra's Chandrapur said, "The result shows Indians would play an important role in space travel and in shaping the future of humanity."
Around 32 teams from across the world took part in the contest to design a manned round-trip mission to Mars. They put together everything they learnt while a high-level panel of judges — current and former Nasa officials — evaluated their engineering proposals.
The challenge before them was to design a risk-free, cost-friendly and technologically simple mission. The team had to take care of life support systems within the spacecraft besides planning its launch, trajectory and return.
The non-profit organization Inspiration Mars Foundation founded by the world's first space tourist Dennis Tito aims to launch a manned mission to fly by Mars by 2021.
"At the drawing board we decided that the safety of astronauts was our priority. We strongly believed that at least one aspect of our design could eventually find its place in the travel of human beings to Mars," said Ashwati.
After about three months of work, 10 teams made it to the final round, including one from SV College of Engineering in Chennai. In August first week, the Inspiration Mars Foundation declared Kshitij's team, comprising students of Purdue and some Japanese universities, as the winner.
A delighted Kshitij said: "We instilled confidence in people that we can send humans to Mars and bring them back safely with minimum costs."
Ashwati, who studied in St Thomas Central School in Thiruvananthapuram, told TOI that the biggest factor that led to her team's success was that they all believed in the mission. "There are some aspiring astronauts and mission leaders in the team, so we all treated it like a real project," she said.
Robert Zubrin, president of Mars Society, said: "The design will be of enormous benefit to the Mars Society, Nasa and anyone else who is willing to take up the challenge." Mars Society is an organization dedicated to promoting human exploration and settlement of Mars.
Kshitij said he wants to return to India after completing his PhD. "I wish to join India's manned space programme and become an astronaut. It is an amazing feeling to represent India at a world forum," he said.
Ashwati said she was proud to represent India and hoped others would follow her path. "Aerospace engineering is a male-dominated field, so I hope to encourage more girls from India and around the world to explore the exciting career."
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