The Washington Aerospace Scholars program has announced Bonney Lake High School student Samuel Petkovich will be participating in one of the four WAS Summer Residency sessions this summer at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Washington Aerospace Scholars is a competitive educational program for high school juniors from across Washington state.

He is among the 160 students who qualified for the Washington Aerospace Scholars Summer Residency program from 247 students who applied in November. To qualify for the residency program, students spent six months studying a NASA-designed distance-learning curriculum via the Internet.

During the residency experience, they will collaborate with other participants on the design of a human mission to Mars. WAS scholars are guided by professional engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators.

In addition to the design of the human mission, WAS scholars will participate in a number of hands-on engineering challenges. These challenges will include design, construction and deployment of robotic rovers, model rockets, lander devices, and payload lofting systems.

Summer residency participants will receive briefings from experts in the fields of engineering, science, physics, medicine, project management, risk management, and space exploration. They will also visit Everett for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Boeing Commercial Airplane assembly plant, (including the new 787), tour Aerojet’s Redmond facility, and the engineering laboratories at the University of Washington. As graduates of WAS, these scholars join over 540 alumni representing 170 different Washington high schools.