Renovated gallery highlights India's achievements in space

From the Mysorean rockets used by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan to the much-lauded Mangalyaan mission, India's contributions to space technology have been displayed at the newly inaugurated gallery in Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum.

The Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), A S Kiran Kumar, and former chairman K Kasturirangan inaugurated the Space Technology gallery on Tuesday.

The museum's previous 'Emerging Space Technologies' gallery was upgraded to reflect the progress India has made in the field of space exploration. The work was done over a period of 18 months at the cost of Rs 85 lakh by the Union ministry of culture.

Starting with principles behind the working of a rocket, the gallery shows visitors how they are launched using a scaled-down replica of the two launch pads in the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. Visitors can see the countdown process and the rockets taking off. Gallery curator K A Sadhana said a team from the museum had visited the space centre to develop this simulation.

A Mission Control Room shows how rockets and satellites are controlled from the ground. Scaled-down models of more than 20 Indian satellites such as Aryabhata, Bhaskara-I, and Apple, are on display with interactive screens giving information about them.

The curators have included many interactive displays, such as one where visitors can see themselves standing shoulder to shoulder with astronauts such as Buzz Aldrin. They can even take pictures of themselves as astronauts.

Sadhana said, "We have used sensors in some of the exhibits where visitors can wave their hand to change the image on screen. This has been developed in-house as such exhibits were not available readily in the market."

Life on the International Space Station, a tour of the place with Sunita Williams, charts of when and where the ISS will be visible with the naked eye, are on display. To understand the benefits of space technology, useful by-products such as athletic shoes, scratch-resistant lenses, cordless power tools, have also been displayed.

A S Manekar, Director General of National Council of Science Museums, who was at the inauguration said they were in talks with Isro to develop a similar space technology gallery in New Delhi.

DH News Service