Atreyee Poddar
Independence Day is a day to look back, but also to look around. India has changed in ways that would have been hard to picture in 1947. On 15 August 1969, another story quietly began, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was set up.
The country had no rockets of its own, no satellites to speak of, just a few scientists with big plans. More than fifty years later, India has sent missions to the Moon and Mars, built its own navigation system, and launched hundreds of satellites. Here are five milestones that made that happen.
Aryabhata and SLV-3 — Aryabhata went up on 19 April 1975 from a Soviet launch site. It was India’s first satellite, about the size of a small fridge and weighing 360 kilos. The mission had technical problems, but it taught ISRO how to build and operate satellites. After five years, on 18 July 1980, Rohini went into orbit on India’s own Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 and that was the first time India had built and launched a satellite without outside help.
INSAT Series — India launched the first INSAT. It made a difference almost overnight — weather updates, live TV broadcasts, emergency alerts, even early telemedicine links. For the first time, a farmer in a remote village and a newsroom in Delhi could both get information from the same network. Today, it’s one of the biggest communication satellite systems in Asia.
Mangalyaan — Launched on 5 November 2013, Mangalyaan reached Mars in September 2014. No other country had managed to pull off something like this. The mission cost was around 65 crores, a lot less than some Hollywood space films, and sent back data on Martian dust storms, the atmosphere, and surface features. It was part science, part statement that India could do complex space missions its own way.
PSLV-C37 — On 15 February 2017, one PSLV rocket carried 104 satellites into orbit. The biggest was Cartosat-2D, built in India to take detailed images of Earth. The rest were much smaller and came from several other countries. It was a world record at the time and got ISRO noticed by space agencies and private clients looking for reliable, lower-cost launches.
Chandrayaan-3 — On 23 August 2023, Chandrayaan-3 touched down near the Moon’s south pole. No other nation had managed that landing spot. The rover moved across the surface and sent back photos and readings. The orbiter stayed in place to relay information. Some of the most interesting findings may come from craters where sunlight never reaches, as they could hold traces of frozen water.