Apr. 24, 2016, Page No;4
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http://tim
mesofindia.iindiatimes.ccom/india/T
This-Ooty-w
woman-has-h
her-eyes-on
n-themoon/arrticleshow/51972015.cm
mshow/514659984.cms806.c
This Ooty T
woman h
has her ey
yes on the
e moon n Deepana Gaandhi's rural Ooty school, may have wh
hetted her ap
ppetite for thee great unkno
own, Science, in
but it gave her no inkling of where iit would lead her. The 26‐yyear‐old, is to
oday a memb
ber of Team In
ndus, the only team from Ind
dia to have beeen shortlisteed among 16 global teams for the $30 m
million Google Lunar XPrrize competitiion, the race to land a privvately‐financeed robotic craaft on the Mo
oon by Decem
mber 2017. Gan
ndhi also happens to be th
he centerpiece of a documentary seriess that traces tthe competingg teams' baackstories. Titled Moon Sho
ot, the series is produced by JJ Abrams, the co‐creattor of the TV series 'Losst' and director of last year's 'Star Warss: The Force A
Awakens' . "India's ch
hanging. Whaat I have been
n through is p
proof of it," saays Gandhi in the documentary, "Now tthere are womeen who are do
oing well in sccience and sp
pace studies. Soon, there w
will be an equ
ual number off men and womeen (in these ffields)." Gandhi is part of the flight dynaamics group aat the Bengaluru‐based Teeam Indus, ressponsible for controlling th
he spacecraft from the point it gets sep
parated from tthe launch vehicle, till the touchdown on the m
moon. Abrams' d
documentary,, directed by Oscar‐nominated Orlando
o von Einsiedeel, traces Gan
ndhi's story frrom her schoo
ol days in Ootyy to her preseent‐day moon
n mission. She was fascinaated with matths from a young age. "Matths mixed witth science is b
beautiful," shee says, as thee film shows h
her teaching cchildren in a ssmall‐
town scho
ool about spaace. Gandhi w
was among those from Teaam Indus who
o travelled to the US to be part of the launch of the do
ocumentary series. "She's incredible. W
When an Amerrican journalist asked her aa e said, "Give m
me a whitebo
oard, I'll explaain it to you',"" says Sheelikka Ravishankaar, technical question, she
who leadss Team Indus' outreach an
nd people pro
ogrammes Gandhi's iinspiration was Kalpana Ch
hawla, the Ind
do‐American astronaut wh
ho became th
he first womaan of Indian origin in space. She went on to do her MTech at PSG College of TTechnology, C
Coimbatore, ffollowing it w
with an intern
nship at ISRO. "People used tto say you are a girl, you ccan sit at hom
me and relax,"" she says. But her family, her father in p
particular, supported her. "My dad alw
ways said a girl can do whatt a boy can. TThat kept me tryingAt laast, I got the opportunity tto prove myself," she says about her stint with Team
m Indus. Foun
nded by IIT Delh
hi alumnus Raahul Narayan
n, Team Induss started out aas the inexpeerienced and u
under‐resourrced underdogg in the competition, but iss now a frontrrunner.