Leaving their academics and sports aside, scores students of a rural school in Gadag district have been preoccupied with only one task — that of recreating the moon mission in their school campus.
After facing failures and then bravely picking up with renewed enthusiasm, the students of School Chandan of Laxmeshwar have been able to achieve their dream, which has attracted the attention of the space research organisation ISRO.
Guided by ISRO scientist Peter Antony Cruz, the students, majority of whom are from a rural background, have recreated the ‘Moon Mission’. The mission will be formally inaugurated by ISRO Chairman A.S. Kirankumar on Monday. In fact, it will be the first visit of the ISRO chairman to a school in a rural area.
More than a quarter of over 700 students of the school have been involved in the project that was inspired by the Moon Mission (Chandrayaan) and ‘Mars Orbiter Mission’ (Mangalyaan).
The school’s association with ISRO is over two-years old as several students and teachers have visited the ISRO campus. The students stood in discipline and explained the four stages of the moon mission: launch of PSLV-XL rocket, putting the lunar orbiter satellite into the lunar orbit, and its descent to Moon surface.
With Mr. Peter’s guidance and the help of a local fabricator, the students have developed the working model, which received funding of Rs. 5 lakh by the Karnataka State Forest Industries Corporation (KSFIC).
The most difficult part of the project was ensuring synchronisation of the battery-operated equipments as variations of the Earth’s rotation and the Moon’s elliptical revolution would end in the mission becoming a failure.
“They had several failures in the last two months. But, finally they succeeded and did a full-fledged rehearsal on Friday evening. They burst into celebration the moment the lunar vehicle touched the Moon,” said the school’s founder T. Eshwar.
The demonstration on the ‘Moon Mission’ in the specially created theatre will be the star attraction in one-acre mega exhibition ‘Chandrayana in Chandanotsav’ that will begin from Monday. ISRO had provided over 250 models for the exhibition which will go on till March 24.
