WARDEN - Two Warden High School juniors were among the students selected to participate in the annual Washington Aerospace Scholars program this summer at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Deianeira Candle and Rachel Crow will be among 160 students who will design a theoretical manned mission to Mars. Participants have their choice of four sessions.

The program is sponsored by the Museum of Flight and a number of business, government and individual partners.

Students work with engineers and scientists, high school teachers and university students when planning the missions. The teams will be required to tackle the scientific challenges of traveling to Mars, landing and getting back, of course. But they'll also be required to solve budgetary and medical challenges of the mission, space exploration law and mission management.

It's not all theoretical. Students will be asked to design and build robotic rovers, model rockets and payload-lifting systems.

Engineers, physicists, doctors and experts in aerospace, exploration, risk management and project management will talk to the participants about their fields and their part in space exploration. The speakers will include retired astronaut Bonnie Dunbar. Students will tour the Boeing commercial airplane assembly facility in Everett.

To qualify for the program, students were required to study a curriculum designed by the University of Washington and NASA, preparation that took five months. Students qualified for UW credits if they chose.

Students and teachers throughout the state are eligible for the program, with applications accepted beginning in September. Applications are available at the museum's website, museumofflight.org.