Thank you for another out-of-this-world contest!

To the 1,020 students who took a shot at becoming our next student space pioneer in a most uncertain year: THANK YOU. The Genes in Space team was inspired by your ability to look beyond the present crisis and envision a brighter future.

This year, we introduced new experimental tools to our ISS toolkit, and you responded by putting them to use in creative and unexpected ways. We read submissions about immune health in plants, about vaccine development in space, and using extremophile microbes to shield space travelers from cosmic radiation. Your ingenuity always blows us away, and this year that was perhaps truer than it's ever been.

One of you will launch your experiment to space in 2022, and we can't wait to find out who it is.

Semifinalists will be notified by email today. In our next blog post, we will introduce the 5 Junior Scientist Award recipients and announce our Constellation Awardees. On May 17, we will identify the 5 Finalists who will compete to launch their experiments to space. We hope you stick with us each step of the way.

Sincerely,

The Genes in Space team