Students such as Viresh Tirukannavar, Hussain Basha, Nikhil Sankanagoudar and Sukanya Kalappanavar of School Chandan of Laxmeshwar in Gadag district have been preoccupied with only one task for the last two months: Recreating the ‘Moon Mission’ on their school campus.
After frequent failures and renewed efforts, they have been able to achieve their dream.
Guided by Peter Antony Cruz, a scientist from the Indian Space Research Organisation, the students, a majority of them from rural areas, have recreated the ‘Moon Mission’, which will be formally inaugurated by the chairman of the ISRO A.S. Kirankumar on Monday. Mr. Cruz has spent nearly one-and-a-half months with the students.
More than a quarter of the 700 plus students of the school are involved in this dream project, the idea of which sprouted soon after the success of Chandrayaan and developed further with the success of ‘Mars Orbiter Mission’ (MOM- Mangalyaan) in September 2014.
Attempts
The school’s association with the ISRO is over two-year old as several of the students and teachers have visited the ISRO campus and there have been several attempts by the school’s founder T. Eshwar to get the ISRO scientists, especially the chairman, to the campus.
When this correspondent asked the students to explain what they had done, they took turns to talk about the four stages of the ‘Moon Mission’. The first stage is of the launch of a PSLV-XL rocket carrying the lunar orbiter, the second stage is that of putting the satellite into the space, which is then propelled into the Lunar Orbit.
The fourth and final stage will be that of lunar vehicle descending on the Moon’s surface.
The students developed the working model with Mr. Cruz’s guidance and the help of a local fabricator. Considering the students’ enthusiasm, Mr. Eshwar, who is also the chairman of the Karnataka State Forest Industries Corporation, funded the project worth Rs. 5 lakh.
Difficult part
The most difficult part of the project was ensuring the synchronisation of the battery operated equipment. As they had to ensure the Earth’s rotation and the Moon’s revolution around it along the elliptical orbit, any slight variation would have got the calculations wrong and the mission would have been unsuccessful.
“They had several failures in the last two months. Finally they succeeded and had a full-fledged rehearsal on Friday evening. They burst into celebration the moment the lunar vehicle touched the Moon,” Mr. Eshwar said.
The demonstration on the ‘Moon Mission’ in the specially created theatre will be the star attraction in the mega exhibition titled ‘Chandrayana in Chandanotsav’ that will begin from Monday. The ISRO had provided over 250 models for the exhibition which will go on till March 24. Apart from Mr. Kirankumar, four other scientists from the ISRO will spend four days with the students.
The students are naturally excited because they will have an opportunity to shoot questions to the ISRO chairman, who was part of the Moon Mission. What is more thrilling is that the ISRO chairman, who is travelling by road to Laxmeswhar, will spend the whole day with them.
