India got its Independence from the United Kingdom on August 15, 1947. However, India's Independence coincided with partition into two separate nations. But, the division of India has not stopped the country from achieving heights in many fields. One of them is India's space programme, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), which was founded in 1969. Over the years, ISRO has made several big achievements and outshined in its field and we have listed a few of them.
ISRO's achievements:
Aryabhata satellite - In the year 1975, ISRO launched India's first satellite Aryabhata, named after the first of the great astronomer of the classical age of India, via a Russian-made rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport.
The first sounding rocket launch was made on November 21, 1963, from TERLS (Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station). It is located in Kerala's Thumba, which is closer to the Earth's magnetic equator.
The first experimental launch of SLV-3 with Rohini Technology Payload onboard was made on August 10, 1979. However, the mission failed but formed the stepping stone for further successes to follow.
APPLE satellite - An experimental geostationary communication satellite was successfully launched on June 19, 1981.
In April 1984, Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to travel in space as part of the Soviet Interkosmos Programme.
INSAT-2B - It was the second satellite in the INSAT 2 series, which was successfully launched for telecommunication and meteorological observation. It was launched on July 23, 1993.
Chandrayaan 1 - India's first lunar probe was launched on October 22, 2008, using a PSLV-XL C11 rocket from SDSC (Satish Dhawan Space Centre) in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
On November 8, 2008, India became the fifth country in the world to put spacecraft around the Moon.
104 satellites in one mission - PSLV-C37 was launched on February 15, 2017, from Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota, where the rocket successfully carried and deployed a record number of 104 satellites in a single mission.
On September 2, 2019, Chandrayaan 2 Orbiter was injected into lunar orbit.
ISRO recently launched its third lunar exploration mission under the Chadrayaan programme on July 14. The lander and rover are expected to land near Moon's south pole region on August 23.
