9-year-old among 1 lakh Indians who ‘took off’ for Mars

MUMBAI: Nine-and-a-half-year-old Pratik G.K, who is attached to the Chennai-based Space Kidz India, was one of the around 1,38,899 people from India who ‘departed’ for Mars at 4.36pm on Saturday on a Nasa mission called InSight (Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport).

Pratik was among one of the thousands to be included in response to a global call to submit names for the Mars mission. Their names were etched on a silicon wafer microchip using an electron beam. The chip was attached to the top hull of the lander. According to Nasa, the inclusion of names was in response to a global call to submit names for the Mars mission. Those who replied were provided ‘boarding passes’ for the flight.

The people on the mission will ‘land’ on Mars on November 26, 2018, in a region called Elysium Planitia. This mission has three firsts— one, it will be the first mission to study the interior of Mars probing as much as 2,000 miles below the surface. Second, it will be the first Nasa interplanetary mission to lift off from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California and third, the two CubeSats, hitchhiking on the flight, will be the first time CubeSats will go into deep space.