PM Modi Declares August 23 as National Space Day

Visiting the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) facility in Bengaluru to congratulate scientists on the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday declared August 23 as National Space Day. The Prime Minister was speaking after returning from his trip to South Africa and Greece.

In a 45-minute speech in which he called the Moon landing a turning point in India’s position as a spacefaring nation in the world, PM Modi also announced that the landing site of Chandrayaan-3 would be named Shiv Shakti point and the crash site of the failed Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019 will be known as Tiranga point.

“For the first time in the history of man and the history of earth, humans are seeing images of that part of the Moon, and India has done the job of showing these images to the world. All of you scientists have done it and the whole world is appreciative of our scientific spirit, our technology, and our scientific temperament,” Modi told scientists at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network center in North Bengaluru.

PM Modi was shown images from the Chandrayaan-3 landing by ISRO chairman S Somnath. “Images take a lot of time to be transmitted to Earth due to data rate and processing,” the ISRO chief told him. He was accompanied by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar members of the Space Commission and NSA Ajit Doval.

“The rover has moved almost out of the field of view (of the lander camera) this morning,” Somnath said.

“It (the rover) will turn later in the day today and look at the lander and take more pictures.” ISRO has yet to release the pictures taken by the rover in the public domain.

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