News Desk
When Aaminath Noya Sameeh steps onto the plane to New Delhi later this month, she won’t just be taking a trip—she will be carrying the hopes of young Maldivian girls looking to break into space science.
Noya, a student at Villa High International School, has been selected to represent the Maldives in the second phase of “Mission ShakthiSAT,” a major international space engineering initiative built specifically to push girls into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields.
Her spot was secured through Women in Management (WIM), an international organization pushing for female empowerment and leadership.
Running from August 23 to 31 in New Delhi, this hands-on phase comes after months of intense online preparation. Noya and thousands of participants worldwide spent the first phase glued to their screens, studying orbital mechanics, satellite propulsion, and complex aerospace systems.
While over 12,000 students from 108 countries joined those virtual lectures, phase two brings things down to earth—and into the lab. Only a selected group of students, with one representative chosen per country, get to travel to India to build and assemble actual satellite hardware.
The final payload engineered by these young women is scheduled to launch into space on October 11.
For local educators, Noya’s journey hits at a crucial moment. While Maldivian girls consistently top local school leaderboards in academic subjects, hands-on STEM pathways—especially niche fields like space engineering and technology—remain largely out of reach for island students.
Giving a local student a seat at a real-world satellite build shows that science is no longer just something Maldivian girls read about in textbooks. It proves they can actually help build the future.
