Vice President Venkaiah Naidu arrives in B’lru for 3-day visit

Bengaluru: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu has landed in Bengaluru airport for a three-day visit on Tuesday, December 29.

Governor Vajubhai Vala, Home Minister Basawaraj Bommai and others welcomed the Vice president.

Venkaiah Naidu will be visiting Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) campus in Hoskote later in the day, to inaugurate two units which are set to play a critical role in larger multinational astronomy projects.

The IIA’s Centre for Research and Education in Science and Technology (CREST) at Hosakote, houses the control room for the Two Metre Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IOA), Hanle, Ladakh.

The director of IIA, Dr. Annapurni Subarnamanian reported the Vice President’s visit as being an academic engagement which will see Naidu inaugurate a large segment polishing facility for the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT), a proposed extremely large telescope due to take shape on Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii.

The Environment Test Facility (ETF) is the second unit set up at M G K Menon Laboratory for Space Sciences, a state of the cleanroom. The ETF shall help with the integration and calibration of space payloads.

IIA informed that the UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) onboard India’s multiwavelength space mission was tested, calibrated and integrated at this facility and the Visible Emission line Coronagraph is also being built in the lab, which will be deployed in Aditya-L1 soon.

The institute also plans to set up a new state-of-the-art National Large Solar Telescope in the Himalayas informed Dr Annapurni, adding that with this facility and Aditya-L1 telescope India will be in the forefront in understanding the sun and space weather.