Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew down today to Bengaluru directly from the Greek capital of Athens to interact with ISRO scientists on the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission. During his address, the Prime Minister announced the decision to name the place where lander ‘Vikram’ touched down on the lunar surface as “Shiva Shakti Point”.
He also named the place where the Chandrayaan-2 lander crash-landed on the Moon’s surface in 2019 as “Tiranga Point”. While addressing the team ISRO at ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), he also announced that 23 August would be celebrated as “National Space Day”.
What is Jawahar point and it’s connection with Chandrayaan-1?
Chandrayaan-1, India’s first mission to the Moon, was launched on October 22, 2008 from Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh. The spacecraft, carrying 11 scientific instruments built in India, the USA, the UK, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria, orbited around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon.
On 14 November 2008, the Moon Impactor probe of Chandrayaan-1 landed on the lunar surface. The MIP crashed, as planned, near the South Pole of the moon at a point was named as ‘Jawahar Sthal’ or Jawahar Point. This came in honor of the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru and on this it was also his birthday.
Further speaking about the Chandrayaan-1 mission, after the successful completion of all the major mission objectives, the orbit was raised to 200 km in May 2009. The satellite made more than 3,400 orbits around the Moon. As per ISRO, the orbiter mission, which had a mission life of two years, was, however, prematurely aborted when the communication with the spacecraft was lost on August 29, 2009. Chandrayaan-1’s objective was only to place an an unmanned spacecraft in an orbit around the Moon. In 2009, a NASA instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandrayaan-1 probe detected water on the moon’s surface.
Meanwhile, after the PM Modi named the Chandrayaan 2 landing site and the crashed land site of Chandrayaan 2, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala took to X (formerly Twitter) and wrote, “India first versus family first! Impact/Landing point names on Moon – 1. Chandrayaan1: Jawahar Point 2. Chandrayaan2: Tiranga Point 3. Chandrayaan3: Shivshakti Point. Lander was called Vikram Lander after Vikram Sarabhai. Had it been UPA they would have never sent Chandrayaan 2 & 3 & if they did they would have named it Indira Point and Rajiv Point.
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Updated: 26 Aug 2023, 11:51 AM IST
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