Boryung said on the 9th that it will push a project to send selected drawings aboard a lunar lander through the youth space and space medicine program "Humans In Space Youth (HIS Youth)."
This will be the first case of a Korean art creation reaching the lunar surface. The aim is to help Korean teens view space as familiar and nurture dreams for the space era.
The project will be carried out with the lunar exploration mission "IM-3" by Intuitive Machines. Boryung plans to load a digital storage device containing the award-winning works and recipients' video messages into the "Luna Time Capsule" and send it to the moon in the second half of this year via Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander.
The Luna Time Capsule is a digital record designed so that astronauts visiting the moon in the future can open it, and it carries symbolic meaning that connects future generations and the present.
Now in its third year, HIS Youth is a youth space and space medicine competition jointly run by Boryung and the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity (KOSAC). In the elementary division, entrants submit drawings on the theme of space and human health, while the middle and high school division proposes research suggesting solutions to problems that could be encountered in space.
Elementary school students selected in the final round will get the experience of having their own work go to space, while middle and high school students will be supported with tours of space-related institutions and corporations such as NASA and Axiom Space, and mentoring with local experts.
The works that will go to the lunar surface through this lunar exploration mission are the elementary division prizewinners from 2025 and 2026. Last year, a drawing contest was held on the theme of "medicines needed for space exploration."
This year, on the theme of "medicines needed for lunar exploration," submissions will be accepted through the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity (KOSAC) website until 6 p.m. on May 11.
Boryung CEO Kim Jeong-gyun said, "The HIS Youth program is an educational program that allows future generations to imagine and participate by consolidating space and life sciences," adding, "Children's imaginations and messages will be consolidated with future space exploration and become a meaningful experience recorded as part of Korea's journey to reach the moon."
Meanwhile, the 2024 elementary division prizewinning works were sent to the International Space Station (ISS) through Axiom Space's private crewed spaceflight mission "Ax-4," and in July last year astronaut Dr. Peggy Whitson hosted a live broadcast from the ISS introducing the children's works.