20 school students from Odisha visit ISRO

Bhubaneswar: A group of 20 school students from Odisha got a rare opportunity to visit and know about operations of the Space Applications Centre of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Gujarat Science City in Ahmedabad.

The visit, which concluded yesterday, was aimed at inspiring these scientific geniuses, selected through Young Astronomer Talent Search (YATS) programme, was organised by Tata Steel in collaboration with Pathani Samant Planetarium, Bhubaneswar.

The tour of the 40-member team, 20 students including 5 girls- each accompanied by his/her guide teacher, to ISRO Space Applications Centre (SAC) gave a rare opportunity to the students to learn about various aspects of operations of ISRO, a Tata Steel release said.

SAC is responsible for development, realisation and qualification of communication, navigation, earth observation and planetary payloads and related data processing and ground systems in the areas of communications, broadcasting, remote sensing and disaster monitoring/mitigation.

Tapan Misra, a renowned space scientist and the Director of ISRO Space Applications Centre complimented Tata Steel and Pathani Samanta Planetarium for organising the tour and shared his experience with the students while interacting with them at the institute.

The students, who returned here yesterday, visited various laboratories and centres inside the campus and observed making of real satellites to be launched in near future. The scientists in charge of these laboratories explained the finer details of the research work they are engaged which left the students spellbound.

The tour, which was flagged off by Odisha Chief Secretary Odisha on May 8 was quite enriching as the team also had the privilege of visiting Gujarat Science City in Ahemdabad. The team was led by Dr Subhendu Pattnaik, Deputy Director of Pathani Samant Planetarium.

These top 20 young talents, from class 8th to 10th, were selected through a contest from among around 800 participants.