Nivedita Khandekar Panaji, December 11, : .Panaji’s 496 rocket kit prototypes, which represent India’s proposed manned space mission, were assembled by Goa students.They set a Guinness World Record of the ‘Most people sending rocket kits simultaneously in a single venue’ on Saturday.
Part of the science popularisation exercise among students under the aegis of India International Science Festival (IIFS) 2021, the event was sponsored by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Soon after the inauguration of IIFS, a total of 550 students sat in neat rows maintaining social distancing and embarked on assembling the kits.After the two-hour assembling session, the students took their respective rockets to the Gymkhana ground nearby, from where these rockets were launched via eight launch pads.
The rockets were fired in small batches amid cheering students.Swapnil, Guinness World Records adjudicator, announced that the record had been set by Swapnil, who was able to announce that 496 of the attempts had been successful.
Earlier, explaining the process of how students were trained, Mayuri Dutt, national coordinator, Guinness World Record (GWR), said, “These are all Class XI students from various Goa schools, many of them from rural areas.They were trained for two-hour sessions for four days over two weeks.”
ISRO’s Director (Capacity Building) of Programme Office, M.Sudheer Kumar, told IANS, “The model represents a GSLV variant called HRLV, i.e., Human Rated Launch Vehicle, that is going to be used in Gaganyan.”
India originally had planned Gaganyaan for the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence.However, the Covid-19 Pandemic and Lockdowns hampered this plan.
The authorities nevertheless decided to make this attempt at record.
The models that students assembled were procured through ISRO’s own startup systems, through an organisation called Rocketeers that builds and flies model rockets and works for spreading awareness about space science.It is a startup by Divyanshu Poddar, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, mentored by the Department of Space.
“The models have been tested for safety and are workable models, which means they are designed to launch, which is a necessary condition for it to qualify as a science experiment for the Guinness World Record.Each model is 300 mm tall and weighs 250 gm,” he said.
Organisers plan to set another Guinness Record on Sunday for ‘Water Harvesting’, and another one on Monday for ‘Space Exploration Lesson at One Place’.
All these events are being held as part of the IIFS 2021, a joint programme of the Ministry of Science & Technology and the Ministry of Earth Sciences along with Vijnana Bharati, an NGO working for propagation of science.
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