Two students from each of the states and Union Territories have been invited to watch the moon landing of Chandrayaan 2 with none other than the Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Indian Research Space Organisation’s headquarters at Bengaluru live at the ISRO control room on September 7. Sixty students, 16 of them from Kendriya Vidyalayas, have been chosen for this event.
The Department of Space, Indian Research Space Organisation (ISRO), had started an online quiz to increase awareness about its space programme which was conducted from August 10 to August 25. The quiz could only be taken by school children from classes 8 to 10. A Class 8 student and resident of Pinjore, Nishtha Sharma, has received an e-mail invite from “contests@mygov.in” on August 28 informing her about her selection and invitation. A student of Amravati Vidyalaya in Pinjore, Nishtha said, “I took part in this quiz on August 11 and I am excited to visit ISRO and witness the moon landing of Chandrayaan-2.”
In the quiz, a total of 10 questions were to be answered in a span of 10 minutes but Nishtha claims that she did it in under seven minutes. Nishtha, who wants to become a scientist, said, “This is just the first step to my dream.” A tribal student, Ribait Phawa from Meghalaya will also be present on September 7 at the ISRO headquarters. Ribait studies at Class 10 in Ramakrishna Mission Higher Secondary School, Sohra and is an NCC cadet. “I am excited to be part of the historic moment, more so because the prime minister will be among those present in the control room at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network facility in Bengaluru,” Phawa told the media.
The Lander of Chandrayaan 2, named Vikram after Dr Vikram A Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian Space Programme, is scheduled to land on the South Polar region of the moon on September 7 between 1:30 am to 2:30 am. The orbit of Chandrayaan-2's landing module 'Vikram' was successfully lowered for the first time on Tuesday and one final manoeuvre remained for India to pull off a historic soft-landing on the moon in the early hours of Saturday.
The 4-second de-orbiting operation was undertaken a day after the indigenously developed lander was separated from Chandrayaan-2's orbiter in a major milestone pushing India's second lunar mission into its last and most crucial leg--a controlled, soft-landing on the Moon The propulsion system on-board the lander was fired for the first time to lower its orbit after it started orbiting the moon independently, said the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO).
