Seven postgraduate students have been awarded the 2026 New Zealand Space Scholarship for internships at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Space Minister Chris Penk announced the recipients at a ceremony on 18 June. The seven are Alexander Wiseman, Angela Xue, Laura Doyle and Zhen Hong Chai from Victoria University of Wellington, Laura Franssen from Auckland University of Technology, and Kyja McCabe and Thomas Phillips from University of Auckland.
The recipients will complete three-month internships at JPL in Southern California. Their postgraduate research spans disciplines including physics, electrical engineering, chemistry, microbiology and aerospace engineering.
Internship projects include work on astrovirology, gas reactions under vacuum ultraviolet light, power electronics systems, and end-to-end telemetry analysis.
The scholarship programme supports a priority in New Zealand's Space and Advanced Aviation Strategy to develop a highly skilled space workforce. New Zealand's space sector revenue grew by an estimated 53% in the five years to 2024.