NCERT Releases New Modules On India’s Space Journey, Traces Country’s Rise From Bicycle To Moon Landing

National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has released special modules on India’s space programme, tracing India’s space journey.

It depicts 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 module has 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 set up in 1962 under Vikram Sarabhai, which grew into the Indian Space Research Organisation. The set-up 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, ANI reported.

The two modules pay tribute to India’s astronaut 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 – Chandrayaan-1, Mangalyaan (2013), Chandrayaan-2 (2019), and Aditya-L1 (2023), India’s first solar observatory at Lagrange Point-1.

(With ANI Inputs)

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