Kannur: Ahmed Tanveer and Shivani S Prabhu are excited to join the prime minister as India takes a historic step in space exploration. The class 9 student of Army Public School, Kannur, and class 10 student of Holy Angels ISC School, Thiruvananthapuram, will watch Chandrayaan-2 land on moon.
To increase awareness about its space programmes, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) had conducted an online quiz for students from Class 8 to 10. The space agency selected top 60 to witness the historic event.
Our detailed package on Chandrayaan-2's journey to the moon
The contest was conducted by Indian Space Research Organisation in coordination with MyGov.in between August 10 and August 25.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, joined by the selected students, will be present at the ISRO centre in Bengaluru to witness live the space feat.
The winners of space and rocket science quiz competition will also get to exchange ideas with the prime minister. The 10-minute online quiz had 20 questions. Ahmed and Shivani answered them correctly. Winners were declared on August 28.
Ahmed is the son of Abdul Salam of Kuruvattur, employed in an architecture company, and Ayishabi, senior accountant at Defence Accounts Service. His sister Fathima is a student at Pallikkunnu Government HSS.
Shivani’s parents are N Sreenivasan, a propulsion group engineer at Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station, and G Rekha. Sister Sreya studies at IIT Palakkad.
Chandrayaan-2 is an ambitious mission of the ISRO, launched on July 22, and on success will make India the fourth country to soft land on the moon after Russia, the US and China.
Chandrayaan 2, a three-module spacecraft comprising an orbiter, lander and rover, which was launched on July 22, will land on the moon on September 7.
Chandrayaan-2's landing module 'Vikram' was on Wednesday brought closer to the Moon after its orbit was lowered further from where it will begin its final descent to pull off a historic soft-landing on the lunar surface in the early hours of Saturday.