NEW DELHI: India will celebrate its inaugural National Space Day on August 23, with President Droupadi Murmu as the chief guest. The National Space Day is now being observed to celebrate the successful landing of Chandrayaan-III on the Moon, making India the fourth country to achieve this milestone and the first to land on the Moon’s southern pole.The theme for this year’s National Space Day is “Touching Lives while Touching the Moon: India’s Space Saga,” and the event will be held at Bharat Mandapam.Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Science and Technology and the Department of Space further said that the ambitious goals for India’s space program, including the upcoming ‘Gaganyaan Mission,’ which aims to send the first Indian astronaut into space by 2025. He noted that recent collaborations with private partners have attracted investments of Rs 1,000 crore into the space sector.Currently, there are about 300 startups in this field, many with international potential. The minister projected that the space economy could grow fivefold over the next decade.The minister further said that the key projects in the pipeline include the establishment of the Bharatiya Antariksh Station by 2025 and an Indian moon landing station by 2045. Notably, Rakesh Sharma is mentoring the Gaganyaan Mission team and has extended his best wishes to Sunita Williams. To mark National Space Day, a range of activities will be conducted across seven zones of the country. These include demonstrations of satellite technology, model rocketry workshops, virtual reality experiences of space missions, and national competitions such as the ISRO Robotics Challenges and the Bharatiya Antriksh Hackathon.
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