HYDERABAD: It was like a scene straight out of a sci-fi film for the residents of Hyderabad on Wednesday morning, as a huge balloon carrying a payload was seen in the city’s skyline, briefly disappearing into the clouds and reappearing. Even as the city dwellers found it difficult to believe what they were witnessing, farmers in Mogiligidda village of Marpally mandal in Vikarabad district located some 100 km away from the city were in for a surprise, as the payload landed with a parachute in their village.
Many were gazing at the sky looking in awe at a bright white object in the shape of a balloon flying high in the sky. The object landed in the agricultural fields of a village located 100 km away from the city centre.The villagers who had never witnessed something like this before, let their imagination run riot, assuming it to be an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). As if they were expecting Jadoo, the alien from the Bollywood film Koi Mil Gaya to pop out of the spherical-shaped saucer, one of the farmers could be seen knocking the object, requesting the passengers to open the door, assuring that he would rescue those stranded inside.The villagers pushed the object here and there trying to examine it thoroughly.
Even as the villagers were convinced that it they had found evidence of alien activity as seen in the movies, it turned out to be a research experiment of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research’s (TIFR) National Balloon Facility, which was conducting an atmospheric study of the stratosphere.The object which was termed a ‘space capsule’ by the scientists of TIFR, was shot some 40 km high into the sky through a giant helium balloon released from TIFR’s balloon facility located in ECIL.
“The space capsule which was manufactured in Spain, was designed to launch eight persons into space. To test the capsule and to study the stratosphere, we installed an instrument weighing 1,000 kg which was carried by the balloon. Experts have been following its path throughout the way. This was not the first time such experiments have been carried out by TIFR. However, as the experiment wasn’t given too much publicity, people didn’t know what was actually happening,” clarified one of the scientists involved in the space capsule experiment.
“They had published in the newspapers that they were going to release 10 balloons with that instrument on November 10. As the fuel which propels the balloon gets exhausted during the flight, the object was brought down to the ground using a parachute guided by remote control. They did inform the Budhera police about it last night, but it landed in our jurisdiction which borders that police station’s limits,” said M Venkatesh, Circle Inspector of Marpally police station.
He told Express that the body of the instrument was made of some kind of light fibre material used in aviation. As the object came down slowly using a parachute guided by experts who knew how to land it, he felt that it didn’t not pose a real danger to humans or property.Venkatesh said that the scientists of TIFR dismantled the space capsule and took away its various components.