|
|
| Rediff Spurs Interest in Chandrayaan |
| Nycil George |
 Email  Print |
| Feb 28, 2007 |
Rediff.com India and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have announced seven winners of 'Design a Mooncraft', a competition inviting Rediff.com readers send their designs for the first Indian Mooncraft.
ISRO plans to send a spacecraft, the Chandrayaan, to the Moon in 2008. This would be India's first unmanned scientific mission to the Moon. Participants in the Rediff contest offered their design take on a mooncraft for this mission.
First prize: Uday Kumar, 34, an NIT-Raipur-trained architect, who designs apartment buildings and IT buildings in Trivandrum.
Second prize: Animesh Behera, 23, an IIT-Bombay electrical engineering graduate, who works for Texas Instruments, Bangalore.
Third prize: Amarah Ahmed, 15, a student of B P Indian Public School, Malleswaram, Bangalore, who is studying for her ICSE exams.
Fourth prize: Kaushik Parmar, 23, a fourth year IIT-Bombay student, studying aerospace engineering.
Fifth prize: Aristo Xavier Coutinho, B K Nagaraaj, K Veera Raghavaiah.
The first four winners were elated with the honor of being invited to receive their prizes from Dr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO, at the ISRO headquarters in Bangalore. The prize ceremony was followed by a tour of ISRO, and high tea with Dr Nair.
Each of the seven winners received Rs 10,000 in Rediff shopping vouchers.
Presenting the awards to the students, G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO, complimented Rediff.com for their initiative to evoke the interest of youngsters in India's first mission to the moon Chandrayaan-1.
He said, "Chandrayaan-1, which is planned to be undertaken during 2008, will be an important program that will provide immense opportunities to the younger generation to undertake challenging pursuits in space science and exploration."
The competition, conducted by Rediff.com, has enthused students to use their talents and imagination in devising the spacecraft for space exploration. This contest reportedly produced hundreds of entries, of which the best were sent to Bangalore to be judged by Dr Nair. He selected the seven top entries after special deliberations.
|
|
