Tripura to build space museum with technical support from ISRO

A three-member ISRO delegation including Associate Director Jeevan Pandit and Associate Director R. Raghu met the Health Minister on Tuesday and discussed the project, Roy Barman said.

ISRO was asked to submit a Detailed Project Report (DPR) within April this year. The project is expected to be functional before Durga Puja, the minister informed.

“Such museums are very important for students, especially for children. It will help them to understand about space, stars and constellations, space travel, how astronauts function in space, how rockets are launched and such things,” Roy Barman said.

After it becomes operational, Tripura’s space museum would be first of its kind in the state and a novel structure in all Northeast.

The Space Museum would use an existing structure of simulated theme space travel entertainment centre called ‘Journey to Sun via Mars’.

‘Journey to Sun via Mars’ was inaugurated on December 24, 2008. The project was implemented by Tripura Renewable Energy Development Authority (TREDA) at Sukanta Academy, a city hall built in 1997.

The centre was operational till 2014, when several technical faults started to appear. A series of efforts, failed to rectify the machine and the unit was let alone after a meeting with the then Chief Minister Manik Sarkar where it was decided that “it may be difficult to restart the Journey to Sun via Mars at Sukanta Academy due to technical reasons”.

The incumbent government took up the issue in August last year and a Space Museum was contemplated to be set up with technical support from ISRO.