World Space Week celebrated in Kozhikode to mark Mangalyaan's success

World Space Week was celebrated in Kerala's Kozhikode district on Friday to mark the success of India's Mars mission, where many enthusiastic school and college students attended the space exhibition organised by the Regional Science Centre and Planetarium.

Mangalyaan had entered the Martian orbit on September 24, making India the first Asian nation to reach the Red Planet.

"Every year from 1999, various countries are conducting World Space Week. If you tell 2013, 80 countries had participated in the World Space Week and there were around 1400 programmes. This year, India is very seriously taking up the World Space Week because of the success of Mangalayan. The Regional Science Centre and Planetarium, Kozhikode, has done every year. This year we are conducting the World Space Week to mark this occasion in collaboration with ISRO, we are having a space exhibition. This is from how ISRO has evolved as a space giant starting from sending a sounding rocket and how it has reached this level of sending Mangalayan," said Director of Regional Science Centre and Planetarium, V.S. Ramachandran.

The World Space Week started on October 04 and concluded October 10.

Various activities for school and college students were organised with the most entertaining being the water rocket competition.

Students made rockets out of water bottles along with coloured paper and glue. A total of 33 students designed and launched their water rockets during the competition.

The students were also given a detailed class on water rocket principle, its working and making.

Although all the rockets launched were not successful, the centre developed its own launch pad from where the water rockets took off using indigenous technology developed by the Regional Science Centre.

World Space Week is celebrated globally every year to mark the success of Sputnik, the first satellite by the then called Soviet Union to go to the outer space, since 1999 by the United Nations General Assembly.