Bengaluru: From model-plane-making workshops to interactive models of satellites, and a movie about the history of India’s space programme — these are among the attractions on offer at ISRO’s three-day Human Space Flight Expo in Bengaluru, which began Friday.
Being held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in Bengaluru, the expo commemorates Indian achievements in space and has been organised as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations marking 75 years of Independence.
Open until 24 July, the expo has been organised by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Human Space Flight Centre, in association with the planetarium. Inviting members of the public to attend talks and view exhibits, ISRO described the expo as a “techno-interactive knowledge-sharing event”.
The activities slotted include games and workshops on model-plane-making, space habitat creation, and space-themed art.
Exhibits at the expo include an interactive Gaganyaan (proposed project for India’s first crewed spaceflight) model, scaled models of rockets and satellites, simulations of a Mars rover, a space toilet, and a space suit, among others.
As part of the expo, ‘The Indian Space Odyssey – Sounding rockets to Gaganyaan’ — a movie tracing the history and evolution of ISRO over the decades — is also being screened at the planetarium’s sky theatre, and there will be live lectures on how to become an astronaut, amateur (ham) radio, and space flight history.
ISRO has been organising similar events across the country. The Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, for instance, is holding a three-day ‘Space on Wheels’ mobile exhibition in Tirupati to showcase models of launch vehicles.
ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre rolled the Space on Wheels (mobile exhibition carrying the models of launch vehicles, satellites, etc.) to Tirupati as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav for 3-day event ending today at SV highschool. Over 6000 students & public have visited so far. pic.twitter.com/dGxJ245YbU
— ISRO (@isro) July 20, 2022
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ISRO’s future plans
The three-day expo in Bengaluru was inaugurated Friday by ISRO Chairman S. Somanath, former ISRO chair A.S. Kiran Kumar, director of the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre, M. Sankaran, and director of the human space flight programme, R. Umamaheswaran.
Referring to the successful Gaganyaan tests, Somanath said the government feels confident that India’s human space flight programme would be a success. “We were once a scientific and economic super power, but we have been suppressed and we are coming up now,” he told students during the inauguration event.
The Gaganyaan mission is ISRO’s most sophisticated programme to date. While the pandemic delayed its first crewed test this year, other test demonstrations, including non-crewed pad abort tests and re-entry tests, have seen successes.
ISRO is yet to announce the names of the astronauts who will be part of the mission, but four shortlisted candidates are undergoing training for it.
Apart from Gaganyaan, ISRO is planning three other major missions: Moon-bound rover Chandrayaan-3, Aditya L1 to study the Sun, and Shukrayaan-1 to orbit Venus.
Earlier this week, Union minister Jitendra Singh told Parliament that ISRO is in the process of developing capability for space tourism by demonstrating human flight to low-Earth orbit (LEO) — at an altitude of less than 1,000 km from Earth’s surface.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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Source: The Print
