JOIN USTeamIndus Foundation on Tuesday announced the launch of its latest initiative, ‘Moonshot Wheels’.
Moonshot Wheels, whose aim is to spread scientific knowledge to school children in India from the grassroots, is a bus that will traverse 11 states, covering 12,500 km, over a 12-month period.
TeamIndus is among five teams competing in the Google Lunar XPRIZE — a global competition challenging privately-funded teams to land a spacecraft on the moon by December 2017.
“In order to educate and inspire government school children, the bus will carry 16 science experiments, live satellite-tracking, moon rover, scaled model of the spacecraft, and an experience zone. Each child will get an opportunity to experience and understand the making of a space mission and its underlying technologies, and will interact with rocket scientists, as well as the rest of the team behind India’s first private moon mission,” TeamIndus Foundation chief functionary Priyanka Narayan said.
While the programme is curated and administered by TeamIndus Foundation, its on-ground implementation is by Agastya International Foundation. The bus, which was flagged off by interim chairman of Tata Group Ratan Tata on Tuesday, is expected to impact over 36,000 students in government schools.