Carpe diem

                                                                                                       Ankur Bora

Tuesday, April 18. 2017 – NASA Kennedy space center, Cape Canaveral was humming with activity. The primary focus was over at the launching pad where an Atlas-V rocket sat with a constellation of CubeSats mounted atop it. CubeSats are fully functional miniaturized satellites developed by the European Union sponsored QB50 project. A unique collaboration between universities and research institutes from 23 countries around the world, these satellites are designed and built by a great number young students supervised by professors at their laboratory. It was a daunting task though, those were traditionally large and heavy instruments and making them small, light and robust enough to fly to the International Space station (ISS) and then orbit around the Earth was a huge challenge, but in the end it was done, with great elegance. As the Atlas-V blasted off spectacularly into space, sending the dreams and aspirations of these students roaring to the sky, a young Assamese girl who was taking part in this ground-breaking mission from École Polytechnique, Paris was ecstatic, she realized that her personal stamp – piece of code that establishes communication channel between the CubeSats and the ground station became operational making its way into orbit.

AssamTribune Horizon 6th April 2018

 “Ever since I first saw the sky and even as a child, I found myself wanting to know everything about space.” – Priyanka Das, a PhD student working on satellite navigation systems, recalls her fascinations with the outer space. She grew up in an environment where her parents always encouraged her to be curious and pursue whatever she liked as long as it was in an organized fashion. She was a student at Mother's International School, Delhi run by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry where she learned French culture, language and history. Priyanka had a dream of becoming a Space scientist and her adventure in the exploration of science began when she secured a place at St. Stephen's College, Delhi for an honors course in Physics. During college, she attended summer internships at the Inter University Accelerator Centre, Photonics lab at IIT Delhi and in experimental physics at the Homi Bhabha Centre, organized by Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Her academic experience at St. Stephen's was thus quite rich and eventful. As she was completing graduation, her professor encouraged her to apply to École Polytechnique in Paris, one of the most prestigious schools in France. In the summer of 2013, Priyanka received the marvelous news that she was accepted at the university with a full scholarship and a paid flight to Paris. At École she was part of a team that made an actual microsatellite for the QB50 project which was launched from Cape Canaveral.

Carpe diem is a Latin phrase that means "seize the day," encouraging people to embrace and make the most of their time. At École, Priyanka seized each and every opportunity, learning from any experience and preparing for the next one. While she was a second year student, she applied to the 2015 Caltech Space Challenge, organized by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in collaboration with scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It was a tough competition but she was able to rise to the occasion and Priyanka was named among the 32 selected from around the world. It was a rare occasion since she was representing two countries, India and France, at the same event. At JPL she was mentored by scientists and engineers from NASA and remained an experience of lifetime. Along the way , she listened and learned from people who had already been where she wanted to go – “I meet some amazing women in Tech events, of all ages, who have inspirational stories to share and talking with them gives me fresh perspective every time on how I could be living my life”.

Back at École, Priyanka completed her masters and simultaneously as an exchange student at ISAE-Supaéro, France's top school in the domain of aerospace, earned a double master in Aerospace Engineering with a specialization in Autonomous Systems, Decision Sciences and Robotics. As it turned out, at the end of her course, she was offered a PhD in collaboration with Safran, a leading aerospace company in Europe. I recently conversed with her and I was simply blown away by the depth of her knowledge, her dynamic energy and her footing between two great cultures, French and Assam as she spoke with me in Assamese and with my children in French! Currently she is pursuing PhD in studying the navigation signals from satellite systems – “The GPS we use today from our phones is rarely more precise than at least a few meters. My research may lead to a super precise position, of the order of centimeters and thus could have applications in autonomous cars and planes where a few centimeters can make the difference for survival.” Priyanka, who has a habit of grasping everything and turning them into action, even took up fencing as a sport and competed at the university level.

 The light we have inside ourselves is our own talent, our own strength – the elements that sets us apart from everyone else. We must find that element and set it afire; this is how our world lights up with energy, action and progress. The world is an amazing place and life is beckoning us with endless possibilities - it is just a matter of paying attention, seizing the opportunity and turning it into action. Carpe diem, my friend, carpe diem - make your life extraordinary!

                                                                                                            ankurbora@hotmail.com