India’s first National Space Day: Significance, origin, theme

On August 23, 2023, India became the first country to land on the southern polar region of the Moon and the fourth one to land on the Moon. As the country celebrates National Space Day today, here is all you need to know about the occasion.

Why is National Space Day celebrated?

On this day a year ago, India achieved a major feat in its Space programme when its Chandrayaan-3 made a soft landing on the south pole of the Moon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had named the landing site of Chandrayaan-3 as 'Shiv-Shakti Point' and declared August 23 as the National Space Day.

What is the theme?

The theme for the first ever space day in India is "Touching Lives while Touching the Moon: India's Space Saga''. A myriad of events are lined up for the day to highlight India's achievements in the space.

Celebrations of the National Space Day

The celebrations of the National Space Day will be undertaken in the Bharat Mandapam and will be livestreamed on ISRO Website & ISRO YouTube Channel.

Meanwhile, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bengaluru, along with its field stations in different parts of India, will also celebrate the first National Space Day by hosting a series of public events.

IIA will organise two public talks at its campus in Koramangala. Rekhesh Mohan from IIA will talk, at 2:30 pm about IIA’s space missions and why astronomers need to place telescopes in space. The institute will release an online image gallery of the UltraViolet Imaging Telescope. S Seetha of the Raman Research Institute will deliver a talk at 4 pm on ‘Astronomy from Space Missions of India’.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday wished everyone on the occasion of first-ever National Space Day.

"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 and we will do even more in the times to come," the PM said sharing a video on platform X(formerly known as Twitter)

India aims to increase its share in the global space economy, from 2-3 per cent to 8 per cent by 2030 and 15 per cent by 2047. It has about 300 space startups; most of them emerged during the last couple of years.

(With DHNS inputs)