Chandrayaan-3 launchpad witnesses unique book release

National award-winning filmmaker-writer Vinod Mankara's new book was released from the rocket launchpad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) here.

The unique launch of 'Prism: The Ancestral Abode of Rainbow', a collection of science articles, was held at the SDSC-SHAR on Thursday evening, as preparations were going on full swing there for the country's much-awaited Moon mission Chandrayaan-3.

ISRO Chairman S Somanath released the book by handing it over to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) Director S Unnikrishnan Nair while the countdown for the historic launch was progressing at the space centre.

SDSC-SHAR Director A Rajarajan, Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) director V Narayanan, former ISRO Director K Radhakrishnan, and many other space scientists were present besides Lipi Publications managing director Lipi Akbar, the publisher of the book, during the function.

Published by Kozhikode-based Lipi Books, 'Prism' is a compilation of 50 interesting articles from various streams of science including space science, astronomy, biology, anthropology and mathematics. It covers various topics such as the James Webb space telescope, dark sky tourism, black hole confirmation, the dog Laika's first space journey and so on.

Somanath himself has penned the foreword for the 167-page book in which he said it was full of the ''marvels of science''.

'Prism' is an exploration into the aesthetic and poetic aspects of science and it would help common people develop a close bond with science and feel its beauty.

Mankara is the maker of 'Yanam', a science-Sanskrit documentary on India's historic Mars Orbiter Mission 'Mangalyaan'.

He has won national and state awards multiple times, has six films and 685 documentaries to his credit. 'Chandranu Nere Choonduviral' on Chandrayaan-1 and 'VSSC@60' marking the 60 years of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre are also among Mankara's documentaries. A new documentary on the Chandrayaan-3 is also in the making.