Aryabhatta Day

Hi! How are you all? Hope we all are enjoying good health doing safe inside our homes.

Yesterday, when I went to roof of my house, I saw the beautiful Moon, smiling at me. I greeted our natural Satellite with a smile in return. All of sudden, my niece asked me Aunt, why are you smiling? I said see, our beautiful God made Satellite. How beautiful, it appears? She asked out of curiosity that what a satellite is?

My role began. I started explaining my niece Samridhi about Solar System. How Sun is acting as the head of family. And all other planets are revolving around it in their respective orbits. Earth is revolving around Sun and our Moon is revolving around Earth. Moon is not a planet, but natural Satellite. It orbits Earth. Galileo Galilei first observed the Satellites through a homemade telescope. He observed and discovered Jupiter’s 4 Moons which are named after him on January 7, 1610.

Then she started asking, so is there any man made satellite Aunt? We came down, and changed the date on my calendar which was kept there on my study Table. I noticed, its 19th April, 2020.
It gave me immense pleasure to explain my niece that 19th April is celebrated as Aryabhatta Day.

Indian School of Robotics celebrates this day in order to remember the historic event when India first time launched its Artificial Satellite in space. This was the day in the Year of 1975, when India first time stepped into the Outer Space via its first man made satellite “Aryabhatta”-named after the Indian Mathematician Aryabhatta. It was launched with the rocket Kosmos-3M, from Kapustin Yar Russian Site by Soviet Union. The purpose of this Satellite launch was to pursue experiments in x-ray astronomy, aeronomics, and solar physics. It was built by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization). Aryabhatta was 26 sided polygon with a diameter of 1.4 m. This mission was meant for 6 months but it was lasted there doing it’s job remaining active till 1981.

On 11th February, 1992, it entered Earth’s atmosphere due to orbital decay. In 1979, India launched “Rohini” satellite by its own Indian made Launch Vehicle SLV-3. 118 total satellites are launched by India so far since 1975. In 2017,February, ISRO made a record of launching 104(3 were Indian satellites out of these 104) satellites together in a single go. Professor Udupi Ramachandra Rao(U.R. Rao) is known as the satellite man of India. We can never forget the contribution of our great astronomers for space exploration.

Thanks to ISRO, for its continuous efforts to make India so competitive in the field of Space and Astronomy!

To know more Website – www.isrrobotics.com / Call – 8284098598 / Email – info@isrrobotics.com

Vandana Sharma
Educational Consultant
Indian School of Robotics