ISRO Chief S Somanath said that India has THE capabilities to achieve much more in the space sector
The achievement of Chandrayaan-3 has raised India’s aspirations in space, and ISRO Chief S Somanath stated on Sunday that India can reach Mars and Venus if the space industry receives more funding.
“India can travel to the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but we must build confidence.” We need more investment, and the space industry must flourish for the entire nation to develop; this is our objective. “We’re ready to carry out PM Modi’s vision,” Somnath told reporters late Saturday evening. The lander module of India’s third unmanned Moon mission, Chandrayaan-3, completed a perfect soft-landing on Wednesday, making it just the fourth country to accomplish this accomplishment and the first to reach the unknown South Pole of Earth’s only natural satellite.
On Friday, ISRO announced that the Chandrayaan-3 rover, dubbed ‘Pragyan,’ had successfully traveled an eight-meter distance and that its payloads had been activated. After successfully landing on the moon, the ISRO is now aiming for the Sun. According to the news agency PTI, the Indian space agency is preparing to launch a solar mission in less than a week, most likely on September 2nd. The Aditya-L1 spacecraft is intended to perform distant studies of the solar corona as well as in situ measurements of the solar wind at L1 (Sun-Earth Lagrangian point), which is approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
It would be the first specialized Indian space mission for Sun observations launched by the Bengaluru-based space agency. Yesterday, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was flying back from a four-day trip to South Africa (for the BRICS meeting) and Greece, he deviated from his customary itinerary and opted to first arrive in Bengaluru to meet with the ISRO team behind the successful Lunar Mission.
Addressing his supporters gathered at HAL airport to greet him, the PM praised the country’s scientific community for its “historic feat.” “I couldn’t come earlier because I wasn’t in the country,” he explained, “but I decided to visit Bengaluru first and meet our scientists when I arrived in India.” PM Narendra Modi
