From Bullock carts to Moon Landing: NCERT launches special modules on India's space journey

New Delhi [India], August 23 (ANI): National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has released special modules on India's space programme, tracing the country's rise from carrying rockets on bicycles and bullock carts in the 1960s to emerging as one of the world's most cost-efficient space powers with landmark missions such as Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1.
The modules, India: A Rising Space Power, have been designed with photographs, diagrams and timelines to help students understand the country's space journey.
It highlights how the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR), set up in 1962 under Vikram Sarabhai, grew into the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which went on to script achievements that have placed India among leading spacefaring nations.
"Our missions are low-cost and simple but high-tech and robust designs; self-reliant in most of its space programmes; these are synergetic and focused," the module notes, summing up ISRO's approach to space exploration.
The two modules-- one catering to middle-stage students and the other to secondary students-- pays tribute to India's astronauts, Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, who became the first Indian to travel to space in 1984 on a Soviet mission, and Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who in June 2025 became the first Indian to stay at the International Space Station (ISS).
It recalls the launch of Aryabhata in 1975, India's first satellite, and the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), which brought television to villages across India.
The early days are contrasted with present-day feats such as Chandrayaan-3's historic south pole landing in 2023, which made India the first nation to touch down in that region of the Moon.
The module lists several landmark missions, including Chandrayaan-1, which discovered water molecules on the Moon; Mangalyaan (2013), which made India the first Asian country to reach Mars and the first globally to succeed on its maiden attempt; Chandrayaan-2 (2019), whose orbiter continues to provide crucial lunar data; and Aditya-L1 (2023), India's first solar observatory at Lagrange Point-1 that is studying the Sun's outer atmosphere and solar storms.
It also mentions the upcoming NASA-ISRO NISAR satellite, which is set to provide high-resolution data on Earth's ecosystems, ice cover, and natural disasters, scanning the planet every 12 days.
The document also outlines India's human spaceflight programme Gaganyaan, which aims to send a three-member crew to a 400 km low Earth orbit for three days. It describes future projects such as Chandrayaan-4, a sample return mission from the Moon, and the planned Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS), approved in 2024, that will serve as India's own space station for long-duration missions and microgravity research.
Alongside scientific milestones, the module stresses India's emergence as a global space service provider. It notes that ISRO has carried out 131 spacecraft missions and 101 launch missions, including the launch of more than 430 foreign satellites from 35 countries, bolstering India's reputation as a reliable and low-cost launch hub.
The NCERT module also highlights the role of India's space applications in everyday life -- from NavIC, India's own navigation system recognised internationally for maritime use, to tele-education, telemedicine, disaster management and real-time information services.
"India's space programme is not just about exploration of planets and stars, but about improving lives on Earth through applications in weather forecasting, agriculture, education and health," it underlines.
The content also points to the future, noting that over 200 space startups are emerging in India, collaborating with ISRO and international agencies. With this momentum, the government has set a target to capture eight per cent of the global space economy by 2035. (ANI)