A junior wing of the National Cadet Corps(NCC), Ribait Phawa, from Ramakrishna Mission School in Meghalaya has been selected to witness the landing of Chandrayan-2, India’s second lunar exploration mission at the Indian Research Space Organisation (ISRO) headquarters in Bengaluru on September 7th, 2019.
The NCC cadet from the Northeastern state of Meghalaya is one among several other school students to have received an invitation via MyGov.in after wining an online quiz competition. He will have the lunar experience in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other scientists.
It may be mentioned that in a bid to increase awareness about the space programmes, ISRO had earlier this month conducted an online quiz competition in coordination with MyGov.in for students of Class VIII to X. The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry had written to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) including other state boards to encourage students for participation.
Phawa was selected after taking part in the quiz competition conducted by ISRO.
On August 22nd, 2019 the ISRO released the first image of the moon captured by Chandrayaan 2. The image was taken on August 21st, 2019 at a height of about 2,650 km from the lunar surface.
The spacecraft was launched at 2:43 pm on July 22nd, 2019 from the Sriharikota space station. It is hoped that the $150m mission will be the first to land on the Moon’s south pole to focus on searching water, minerals, measuring moonquakes and so on.
Photo: Sanjay Pareek
