India has officially secured nine major world records in space exploration and is on track to add at least 8 to 10 more in the coming years, ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan announced on Tuesday. Addressing the All-India Management Association’s 52nd National Management Convention, Narayanan highlighted a series of groundbreaking achievements that have firmly established India as a global leader in the space race.
Narayanan noted that India’s record-breaking journey began in 2008 with the Chandrayaan-1 mission, which made the country the first to discover water molecules on the lunar surface. This was followed by the historic Mars Orbiter Mission in 2014, which made India the first nation to reach the Red Planet on its maiden attempt. In 2017, the PSLV-C37 rocket set another global benchmark by successfully launching 104 satellites in a single mission.
The chairman also highlighted the recent lunar missions, with Chandrayaan-2 placing the world’s best orbiter camera around the Moon in 2019. The most significant achievement came on August 23, 2023, when Chandrayaan-3 made India the first country to land a spacecraft near the lunar South Pole and conduct the first in-situ measurements of that region’s environment.
Beyond these high-profile missions, India has also set three global records in cryogenic stage development, including the fastest maiden flight of the LVM3 rocket with a cryogenic stage, completed in just 28 months—a timeline significantly shorter than those of other nations.
Narayanan attributed ISRO’s success to a unique, cost-sensitive approach. “We analyze and authorize every test with utmost care, and this sensitivity has helped us keep launch costs low,” he said. He added that to date, India has launched more than 4,000 rockets and 133 satellites, contributing significantly to national security, economic growth, and the rise of a new wave of space entrepreneurship.
Looking to the future, the ISRO chief announced ambitious plans to secure more records and achieve a monumental goal: landing a human on the Moon by 2040. This vision, he said, is a key step in India’s journey toward becoming a developed nation.
