India’s Space Saga Takes Center Stage at GITAM Bengaluru

By India Education Diary Bureau Admin On Aug 28, 2024

Bengaluru – The GITAM School of Science at GITAM’s Bengaluru campus commemorated the first anniversary of Chandrayaan-3’s historic lunar landing with the National Space Day Symposium. The event featured a stellar lineup of experts from ISRO, NASA, and leading Indian research institutions, offering insights into the past, present, and future of India’s space odyssey.

Keynote speakers included Dr. K. Praveen Kumar (ISRO), Dr. Andrew Mattioda (NASA), and distinguished professors from IISER Pune, IIA Bengaluru, IST Trivandrum, and PRL Ahmedabad. Their addresses spanned topics from the Indian Space Program’s evolution to astrobiology and the universe’s physics.

“India is celebrating its maiden National Space Day on August 23, 2024, with the theme ‘Touching Lives while Touching the Moon: India’s Space Saga.’ On this day last year, the Chandrayaan-3 mission accomplished the safe and soft landing of Vikram Lander on the lunar surface,” said Praveen Kumar, Deputy Director at ISRO Headquarters.

“With the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission, India became the fourth country to land on the moon and the first to reach its southern polar region. The space activities in the country were initiated with the setting up of the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) in 1962. The same year, upper atmosphere studies were initiated using sounding rockets at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) near Thiruvananthapuram. India’s space saga continues with scientific missions like the Chandrayaan series, Mars Orbiter Mission, AstroSat, Aditya-L1 and XpoSat, and other future space science missions. Indian space programme opens up new frontiers in space exploration and technology with the new projects of Bharatiya Antariksha Station in 2035 and Indian on Moon in 2040,” he added.

The symposium also featured dynamic panel discussions on cutting-edge space research and interactive student poster exhibitions, fostering a vibrant knowledge exchange and collaboration atmosphere.