‘Into the unknown- A space mission’ by13 year old Aanya Patni from Kolkata

3… 2… 1… Launch Successful!

“Ei baba shono!!!” Abhigyan shrieked at 3 o’clock in the morning jumping off  his humble stool, eyes still stuck to the TV set. His father Rajkarna, came out of  the washroom with an anxious, pale face, rubbing his eyes which looked  rather jarred and sleepy.

“Yes dad, We made it!!!” Abhigyan tells his father , exchanging happiness, something that was  happening in most of the millions of households of the country.

Very soon, the PM addressed the nation from the barracks of ISRO, congratulating the team and countrymen on the successful launch of  Mangalyaan 13. Three of the nation’s most experienced and celebrated  astronauts Ravish Malhotra, Shawnya Tewari and Mrityunjay Sharma had  taken off to make history for mankind.

It has been 198 days since the take off, and the astronauts knew the wait was  nearing the end. They had entered the Martian trajectory for landing. The atmospheric entry was about to begin and the touchdown was about seven  minutes later. There was a huge amount of tension in the ambience of the  spacecraft and all the three astronauts exchanged exasperated, tensed looks  and yet a sense of accomplishment was beaming right through their gleaming
eyes. An exchange of OK on fingers and moving ahead. Two minutes left for the touchdown. The spacecraft made the final manoeuvre.

There was anxiety on earth, specially with all the media speculation. Thirty seconds left to go. Mangalyan hovered above the Martian land for a few seconds. 2 seconds… Touchdown!

The payload opened up a parachute and big balloons were covering it,  absorbing the tension and supporting it from the impact. The balloons burst  and the payload opened up, revealing the spacecraft cabin housing the  threesome. After scores of minutes of stabilizing, the moment seemed closer.

The legs came out of the payload and anchored it to the Martian soil. There was silence and the three astronauts followed some protocol, dictated steps  and after almost an hour, the go ahead was taken for opening the machine and entering the Martian soil.

Ravish took to the padlock and gave a thumbs up to Shawnya to go up to the  door to make the exit. Behind her was Mrityunjay. And the moment came and  the doors opened. Wearing the spacesuit, with the oxygen helmet, Shawnya opened the gate and the automatic stairs opened and  anchored it to the soil.

After a moment of uncertainty, Shawnya made a circumspect step onto the  red, rocky and dry terrain. Shawnya took the first step making history as now  all the future mars explorers would follow in her footsteps. As they all came  out, they took a moment to take in the stunning scenery, red soil which gave the planet its name and a dazzling sky with different hues of red and orange.

Shawnya looked at Mrityunjay and chuckled, “The scenery here is quite  ‘breathtaking’ and when I say that, I mean it quite literally.”  showing the action as though she was removing the oxygen
helmet.

As the instructions came pouring in their headgear, the team got down to  executing the strategic and scheduled steps. They started taking out there analysis equipment and distributed it among themselves. All of them went in  different directions knowing that no time could be wasted as they had a window of eighteen hours of work. Ravish and Mrityunjay compiled samples of rocks, stones, soil and other elements of nature while Shawnya set up the  weather studying apparatus.

After about seventeen hours of research, the Martian expedition was closing  on the time allotted on the surface and the astronauts were wrapping up their  work. Shawnya was to have the engines fired and ready. They were to leave in  the next hour, as the placement of the cosmic bodies would be such that the  amount of time for the ranger to reach back earth would be less than 200  days. They knew that if they missed this timeline the placement of the Martian  and Earth orbits would be such that it could them more than a year for the  ranger to reach Earth.

Just when they were wrapping, Ravish saw a peculiar green object behind a  large dark rock. Ravish jumped up off his feet. Startled by this Mrityunjay  checked on Ravish, “What?”

Ignoring him, Ravish walked up to the rock and behind it he saw a peculiar  looking creature hiding its face. As soon as it saw Ravish it looked up to unfold  a face with pearly, black eyes, thin woody arms, ghoulish legs and prickly  thorns for hair. It’s body colour was green with hints of grey.

Ravish gestured for Mrityunjay to come to see the extra terrestrial creature.  Astonished, “Ravish it looks very vile. There could be more of them around  us,” Mrityunjay said in a cautious tone.

“We must warn Shawnya about this.”

Ravish studied the creature up close. It looked rather harmless. Just when he  extended his arm to reach out, the creature spewed a murky yellowish fluid  which seemed like a pernicious toxic chemical. It exhibited hostility and  charged behind him. Ravish toppled over the rock and saw Mrityunjay run  towards the spaceship. Ravish balanced himself and started running too. Just  then he saw the creature tumble into a deep gorge reaching out with its  slender woody arm.

Ravish was torn between returning to the spaceship and heading back home. He was already getting late. Should he help this hostile creature. He chose the  latter and flung his arm open, helped the light weight creature up and ran to  the spaceship. Without further ado, Shawnya had the doors shut and then  ignited the spaceship and took off.

It was an experience of a lifetime, ‘Into the unknown, with the unknown.’