And the winners are...

The Grand Prize winners of the UK OurSpace competition were announced on Friday 23 July at the Farnborough Airshow’s Space Zone.

Special guests at the event included European Space Agency astronaut Jean-François Clervoy and the popular space blogger, CosmOnline's Ben Gilliland (that's me).

Earlier in the year, British-born astronaut Richard Garriott announced the launch of OurSpace - a UK wide competition that challenged students to "dream up their own amazing space adventure, a flight of imagination about their own space to reach prizes that are out of this world."

The finalists and Grand Prize winners were judged by a panel of space, education and media experts, along with Richard Garriott himself. As well as a trip to the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and Johnson Space Centre in Texas with the ISSET, the galaxy of cool prizes included visits to the House of Commons in December 2010, tickets to the National Space Centre, World Space Week invitations to Intech, and signed goodies from Richard Garriott and Lucy Hawking, daughter of physicist Professor Stephen Hawking.

The Grand prize for the 13+ age category, including a trip to Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and Johnson Space Centre in Texas, was awarded to Mala Mawkin (pictured above), aged 15, of Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, Elstree

Special award certificates for entries were made to:

• Hemang Balkrisha, aged 14, from Rushey Mead Secondary School in Leicester
  
• Sophie Harker, aged 18, from Vyners School in Ickenham
  
• Emily Waide, aged 12, from the Stephen Perse Foundation School in Cambridge

The class prize of a class trip to the National Space Center went to the Stephen Perse Foundation School in Cambridge

In December there will be a presentation ceremony in the House of Commons for the Grand winners and all finalists. Winning entries will be posted shortly on the Our Space website

OurSpace is led by Queen Mary, University of London and supported by the UK Space Agency. Professor Peter McOwan from Queen Mary, who leads the OurSpace partnership, said: "Everyone who made it through to the Airshow event was a winner. It's been an amazing journey for the team working on making these space adventures accessible, educational and fun."

Heather MacRae, Director of Babcock (and long-time Cosm supporter) said: "We can see the inspiration that space provides to young people. This competition encourages students to use science in a creative way. We were amazed at their brilliant ideas."

All images are courtesy (and copyright) of Michael Cockerham

More info:

The UK Space Agency

OurSpace

Queen Mary, University of London