NEW DELHI – The country’s elite space agency has been honoured with the prestigious US’s Aviation Week Laureates Award for its remarkable achievements in the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which made India the first country in the world to land on the Moon’s virgin south pole on Aug 23 last year. In another accolade for the space agency, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has approved the name ‘Station Shiv Shakti’ for the landing site of Chandrayaan-3’s lander. The approval was given on March 19.
Sripriya Ranganathan, deputy ambassador at the Indian embassy in the US, accepted the award on behalf of Isro. The Indian embassy later posted on X: On behalf of Isro, Cd’A Sripriya Ranganathan received the prestigious Aviation Week Laureates Award, which recognises extraordinary achievements in the aerospace industry. The award noted Chandrayaan-3’s landing at the lunar South Pole, its confirmation of the presence of water there, as well as the presence of sulfur nearby — all at a cost of $75 million!
These awards celebrate exceptional accomplishments that embody the spirit of exploration, innovation and vision. The ceremony, attended by over 400 industry professionals and influencers, recognised groundbreaking achievements. On Aug 23 last year, Vikram lander touched down on the Moon’s uncharted territory of the south pole and deployed the Pragyan rover, which performed lunar experiments on the lunar surface and took images for one lunar day (14 Earth days) and sent data back to the Earth.
In another recognition of India’s south pole landing, IAU working group for Planetary System Nomenclature has approved the name ‘Shiv Shakti’ for the Chandrayaan-3 landing site. Compound word from Indian mythology that depicts the masculine (‘Shiva’) and feminine (‘Shakti’) duality of nature; Landing site of Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander, states the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature on the origin of the name.
Soon after the landing PM Narendra Modi had on Aug 26, 2023, named the moon landing site ‘Shiv Shakti’. The point where the moon lander of Chandrayaan-3 landed will now be known as Shiv Shakti. In Shiv, there is resolution for the welfare of humanity and Shakti gives us strength to fulfil those resolutions. This Shiv Shakti point of the moon also gives a sense of connection with Himalaya to Kanyakumari, Modi had said.
According to the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, planetary nomenclature, like terrestrial nomenclature, is used to uniquely identify a feature on the surface of a planet or satellite so that the feature can be easily located, described, and discussed. This gazetteer contains detailed information about all names of topographic and albedo features on planets and satellites (and some planetary ring and ring-gap systems) that the IAU has named and approved from its founding in 1919 through the present time, it states.
