Team Indus, the private initiative to land a rover on the Moon, received 3,000 entries from 15 countries including the US, the UK, Peru, Italy and India for its Lab2Moon competition, announced in July last year, to select experiments to be carried as payloads on its rover.From those entries, 15 have been shortlisted, including an inflatable dome that could help humans live on the Moon, an experiment to see how hardy microorganisms adapt to conditions on the Moon, and even a project that seeks to produce oxygen on the Moon. The projects are mostly by youngsters, many of them college students.
On Wednesday, a jury consisting of former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan, French space agency CNES's former chairman Alain Bensoussan, and professor of astrophysics at Yale University Priyamvada Natarajan will select a maximum of eight winners from the shortlisted 15.
Team Indus, founded in 2011 by IIT-Delhi alumnus Rahul Narayan, is itself part of a larger competition the Google Lunar XPrize competition to land a privately-fun ded craft on the Moon by December this year. It's among the five teams still in the race.Team Indus' craft will carry a number of payloads, including those of the winners of its Lab2Moon competition.
Kasturirangan said that unlike government space agencies, these private teams can use newer unproven technologies and risk failure. “Space research has been conservative when it comes to use of radical new technologies. These youngsters have brought in new ideas and imagination for research and exploration,“ he told TOI, after listening to the presentations of the 15 finalists.
Bensoussan likened the renewed interest in space to the time when man landed on the Moon, in 1969. He attributed it to various private initiatives, including that of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson.“The Lunar XPrize and competitions like the one Team Indus has organised, have brought back the interest in the Moon. Living on the Moon will remain the next big thing in space. We need to build upon the knowledge and innovations that are sustainable," he said.
Natarajan said that STEM (science, technology , engineering and mathematics) studies will and have to be encouraged among youngsters for more innovations. “This competition has done that and is already a success as we have an embarrassment of riches," she said.
Among the final 15 is team LunaDome, founded by students from the University of Bath (UK). It has proposed a 250 gram payload that will launch an inflatable dome on the lunar surface. The team has received 2,000 pounds from the university for its project, and even a letter from British prime minister Teresa May wishing them good luck. “We have inspired a lot of school children to take up science as they see us doing what they are studying," said Samuel Brass, one of the team members.
Bengaluru-based The Lunar Leap is looking to send Tardigrades, micro-animals considered capable of withstanding some of the most severe environmental conditions, to the Moon and study their survival behaviour.“This will help us learn more about their DNA structure, learn what makes them so tough, and even culture those strands in human cells," said Keertivardhan M Joshi, one of the three team members, all employees of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) but participating in their personal capacities.
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