Historic! India celebrates its first National Space Day to mark Chandrayaan 3's landing | All you need to know

National Space Day 2024: India is celebrating its first National Space Day on Friday (Aug 23) to commemorate the historic landing of moon mission Chandrayaan-3.

Last year on August 23, India became the fourth country to land on the moon and the first to reach the southern side of the moon. To honour this landmark achievement of India and its scientists, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced this day as “National Space Day.”

PM Modi shared a heartfelt greeting of the day to Indian scientists and fellow Indians and urged everyone to mark this day “with great pride in our nation’s achievements in the space sector.”

Greetings to everyone on the first National Space Day. We recall with great pride our nation’s achievements in the space sector. It is also a day to laud the contributions of our space scientists. Our Government has taken a series of futuristic decisions relating to this sector… pic.twitter.com/E7QcNDSm4u — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 23, 2024

For the maiden National Space Day, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will celebrate the day with the theme “Touching Lives while Touching the Moon: India’s Space Saga.”

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The celebrations of the day will take place at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, and the event is being streamed live on ISRO’s website and YouTube channel.

National Space Day - 2024
Is here!

Join the celebrations at https://t.co/msTmSmUJcY#NSpD2024@DrJitendraSingh — ISRO (@isro) August 23, 2024

A grand two-day event will take place at Bharat Mandapam, featuring high-profile sessions, interactive exhibitions, and important announcements regarding India’s space achievements. Additionally, mobile exhibitions named "Space on Wheels" will tour universities and colleges throughout the country. This initiative aims to educate students about ISRO’s activities and India’s pioneering space missions.

ISRO Chairman S Somanath praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his crucial role in advancing India's space sector. In an interview with ANI on National Space Day, Somanath highlighted recent policy reforms and initiatives under PM Modi’s leadership.

"PM Modi's leadership has been crucial in several key policy interventions in India's space sector. As Prime Minister, Modi has not only created but also implemented policies through the governmental system," said Somanath.

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Chandrayaan-3 was a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. It consisted of Lander and Rover configuration. The mission was launched by LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.

There were three mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3- to demonstrate a safe and soft landing on the Lunar surface, to demonstrate Rover roving on the moon and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments. The mission achieved the first objective successfully on 23 August 2023, after which the entire nation broke into celebration and patriotic fervour.

(With inputs from agencies)