A memorable black-and-white photograph from the early days of the Indian space programme shows the nose cone of a small rocket being taken to the launchpad on the carrier rack of a bicycle. It’s an incongruous sight. All around the bicycle is the dusty, palm-bedecked rural India of the 1960s. Cut to 2023, and the image of a jubilant S. Somanath, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), declaring, “We have achieved soft-landing on the moon. India is on the moon.”
In the slow yet eventful decades separating the two images, the space programme evolved from what many perceived as the frivolous aspirations of an upstart, poverty-stricken third-world country to a sparkling example of scientific excellence that Indians can look up to. Truth is, the ISRO had made it to the elite space club much before the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s ‘Vikram’ lander touched down on the lunar south pole on August 23. The space agency has proved its capabilities time and again by placing satellites in precise orbits on modest budgets and embarking upon highly publicised missions to the moon (in 2008 and 2019) and Mars (in 2014).
In 2017, the ISRO turned up the heat on the space race by launching 104 satellites in one go on the 39th flight of its trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). But beyond such immediately visible, high-profile achievements are the countless ways in which the ISRO and its home-grown technologies have touched the lives of the common people; be it weather forecasts, telemedicine, navigation or tele-education. It is this connect with the grassroots that has made ISRO a household name.
