India To Observe August 23 As National Space Day To Celebrate Chandrayaan-3’s Success: PM Modi Announces

PM Narendra Modi has announced that the day when Chandrayaan-3 landed on the Moon, i.e. August 23, will now be observed as National Space Day to celebrate the success of India's third lunar mission.

Bengaluru: PM Narendra Modi has announced that the day when Chandrayaan-3 landed on the Moon, i.e. August 23, will now be observed as National Space Day to celebrate the success of India’s third lunar mission. The Prime Minister, who was addressing the ISRO scientists in Bengaluru, shortly after he landed in India from Athens, also announced the decision to name the place where lander ‘Vikram’ touched down on the lunar surface as “Shiva Shakti Point”.

Terming the success of Chandrayaan-3 mission as an ‘extraordinary moment’ in the history of India’s India’s space programme, he said the place where the Chandrayaan-2 lander crash-landed on the Moon’s surface in 2019 would be known as “Tiranga Point”. August 23, the day the Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the lunar surface, would be celebrated as “National Space Day”, said the Prime Minister, who turned emotional while addressing the team ISRO at ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) here, as he lavishly praised them for their dedication and passion.

PM Modi began his address by saying that he was so restless when Chandrayaan-3’s landing moments came. He said he was in South Africa but his mind was with scientists of ISRO. He added that as soon as he concluded his Greece visit, he wanted to meet and salute the people behind the success of Chandrayaan-3. “I wanted to meet you all, salute you as soon as I landed in India,” PM Modi said as he got emotional while addressing ISRO scientists.

He said that every second of Chandrayaan-3’s landing on August 23 is passing before his eyes. “This is India, which thinks innovatively and uniquely. This is the India which goes to dark zones and illuminates the world by spreading light,” he added.

After a 40-day journey into space, the Chandrayaan-3 lander, ‘Vikram’, touched the uncharted lunar South Pole on Wednesday evening. With this, India became the first country to do it. In addition, the country also became only the fourth nation after the US, Russia, and China to successfully conduct a lunar landing mission.

PM Modi had joined the ISRO team at Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISTRAC virtually from Johannesburg, where he was attending the 15th BRICS summit.