Only India can do..: ISRO chief encourages students to become astronauts at Apna Chandrayaan portal launch

NEW DELHI: The ministry of education along with the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) launched the Apna Chandrayaan web portal, bharatonthemoon.ncert.gov.in, today. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman S Somanath and education minister Dharmendra Pradhan were present during the launch of the web portal.

Interacting with the students, the ISRO chief said that the portal was launched to encourage students to become astronauts, researchers and scientists. He informed the students that the Gaganyaan will be launched on October 21 at 8 PM and will be live streamed in Doordarshan and YouTube.

“Gaganyaan is the demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of 3 members to an orbit of 400 km for a 3 days mission and bringing them back safely to earth, by landing in Indian sea waters,” the ISRO website said.

“Sending astronauts to space is easy but bringing them back to earth is difficult and it requires modern technology and computers. Material research, medicine, technology, science and other related subjects are important for such a mission,” he said.

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“In 2014 I was the project director and today (this year) we launched Chandrayaan-3. You can also one day design Chandrayaan-10. So, are you ready to design Chandrayaan-10? Only Indians can do it, only we do it at lowest cost and we have the best of minds in India. Only thing is you have to give opportunity to them,” he said.

“If ISRO and the education ministry is able to communicate and inspire students to pursue studies to contribute to the space missions, we have done our job,” he concluded.

The Apna Chandrayaan web portal also has a short video explaining the whole journey of Chandrayaan-3 from earth to moon.

On August 23, India made history by successfully landing Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of the moon, Earth’s natural satellite.