By R Sujatha

Chennai: An air service agency in Canada that offers flight training has come forward to help India’s D Udhayakeerthika fulfill her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut.

Harv’s Air Academy at Steinbach in Canada has accepted the 23-year-old resident of Allinagaram in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu as a trainee pilot. Her only hurdle is money.

Her father T. Damotharan is now busy finding donors for his only daughter’s training. He was an advertising board painter, who also wrote a few stories in Tamil magazines. Her mother Amutha was a computer operator in a law firm who resigned due to health issues.

It all began, when in grade ten and later in twelfth grade, Udhayakeerthika won the first place in essay contests conducted by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The school topper was invited to ISRO to receive her prize. She got to see rockets and the functioning of ISRO and she began to dream of becoming an astronaut.

Her parents supported her with help from well-wishers, and she went to the Ivana Kozheduba Kharkiv National Air Force University, Kharkiv in Ukraine from where she graduated after a four-year degree program as a specialist technician of aircraft maintenance engineering with 92.4 percent marks.

During her final year in 2019, she applied to the Analog Astronaut Training Center in Poland where she trained to be an astronaut. There she was taught the survival tactics for the moon or Mars, she says.

“We are put through rigorous training that requires extreme physical fitness. It is a military medical institution,” says Udhayakeerthika, an alumni of a Tamil-medium aided school in her village.

She undertook a simulation space flight, including re-entry into the earth from space, which tested her ability to withstand the force of anti-gravity. She has completed the exams conducted by the Director General of Civil Aviation and has been accepted by Harv’s Air Academy, for training.

“I have been asked to join in April. I have cleared the exams. The cost of education, including visa and living expenses amounts to 5 million rupees for which I need donors,” she says.

“A lot of people have helped me come this far. I chose Canada as it is a one-year course. In India it takes two-and-a-half years. Besides, all military pilots train in the Academy. The bank wants me to show my financial capability. Only after bank approval can I start the visa process,” Udhayakeerthika says.

Source: thehindu.com