'Shiv Shakti' & 'Tiranga': PM names 2 Chandrayaan sites

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, August 26

In a bid to mark the Indian footprints on the moon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced that the touchdown site on the lunar soil of Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 mission will be called “Shiv Shakti”.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:

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Pragyan rover roams around Shiv Shakti Point in pursuit of lunar secrets at the South Pole 🌗! pic.twitter.com/1g5gQsgrjM

— ISRO (@isro) August 26, 2023

Modi, who flew directly to Bengaluru this morning from Athens to compliment the ISRO scientists on their success in accomplishing the unprecedented feat of soft landing on the lunar south pole, also named the point where the Chandrayaan-2 mission’s lander had crashed in 2019 as “Tiranga”.

2 goals achieved

• The ISRO has said two of the three Chandrayaan-3 mission objectives had been achieved, while the third — onsite scientific experiments — was underway.
• Demonstration of a soft landing on lunar surface and rover roving on the moon had been accomplished, it says, , adding all payloads are performing normally.

It was decided the crash site would be given a name after success in soft landing on the lunar surface was achieved with another mission, Modi said. The naming of the two points pushed up the number of lunar sites having association with India to three. The site, upon which the moon impact probe (MIP) was dropped by India’s first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 in 2008, was earlier named “Jawahar Point” after first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

“In Shiv, there is resolution for the welfare of humanity and Shakti gives us strength to fulfil those resolutions. The Shiv Shakti point of the moon also gives a sense of connection with Himalaya to Kanyakumari,” the PM said.

“In the success of Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, our women scientists, the country’s Nari Shakti, have played a big role,” PM Modi further noted, adding: “Shiv Shakti point will bear witness to the scientific and philosophical thinking of India.”

Modi said the Tiranga point would serve as an inspiration for every effort that India made and remind countrymen that failure was not the end.

The PM also announced that August 23, the day of the soft landing of Vikram on the moon, would be commemorated as ‘National Space Day’. The day would celebrate the spirit of science, technology and innovation and give inspiration to Indians for all time to come, said PM Modi.

The PM, who was addressing ISRO scientists at the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network in Bengaluru, said from being a third-world country, India had now emerged as the fifth largest economy.

“From the journey from third row to the first row, vital role has been played by ISRO,” the PM, said rhyming “ISRO” with “row”.

In an emotional note, the PM said while he was physically in South Africa on August 23 (to attend the BRICS summit), his mind was focused on the landing by Vikram slated to take place that day. He said meeting the scientists who scripted the success story of Chandrayaan-3, he was gripped by feeling of intense happiness that one experienced only on rare occasions.

The PM urged the younger generation to come forward to scientifically prove the astronomical formulas found in ancient Indian scriptures. “It is important for our heritage as well as for the advancement of science,” he added, while urging students across the country to take part in a quiz competition on the Chandrayaan mission organised by MyGov from September 1.

New moonwalk video

ISRO on Saturday released a video showing the Pragyan rover roaming around Shiv Shakti point on the lunar surface.