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On the occasion of National Space Day, fashion designer Manish Tripathi, who custom-designed the official Indian mission patch worn by ISRO astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla during the ISRO-NASA-supported Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) to the International Space Station, said that celebrating the day would create greater awareness about space and careers in the sector.
Speaking to ANI, Tripathi said, "Certainly, it's a wonderful achievement for all the countrymen, for all our Bharatiya [Indian] people. The long-due recognition for the space sector is coming through, and I'm really glad and really happy that today I could speak about National Space Day. It's a great day for all of us." "I would say that celebrating such a day would certainly create more awareness about space, about careers in space, and the generations to come would explore this further," he added. Recalling his experience of designing the mission patch for the Axiom-4 mission, Tripathi said it was a "great honour" to be part of the prestigious mission. "Obviously, it's a great honour for me to be a part of this particular domain, wherein I could be a part of this by becoming one of the designers of the mission patch for this prestigious Axiom-4 mission," he said. Tripathi also highlighted that Gaganyaan was depicted on the mission patch, reflecting India's ambitions in human spaceflight. "In that mission patch, you will see that we have also depicted Gaganyaan, which was there to reflect the ambition of the Indian space programme where humans in space are concerned," he said. "I'm really excited, and I'm looking forward to whether I could also be part of that particular project," Tripathi added. Speaking about India's space journey and ISRO's recent programmes, Tripathi said the growing awareness around the sector was commendable. "I feel that this space programme, especially over these three years, the way ISRO has launched its various programmes and the way awareness has been created around the space programmes is commendable," he said. "The way our government is promoting this particular sector is quite phenomenal," Tripathi added. India became the first country to land near the Moon's southern polar region with the successful soft landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, marking a major milestone in the country's space programme. Chandrayaan-3's successful landing on August 23, 2023, was a historic achievement for India and followed the country's earlier lunar missions. The mission's lander, Vikram, made a controlled soft landing on the lunar surface, while the Pragyan rover was deployed to conduct scientific experiments. The achievement placed India among the select group of nations to successfully achieve a soft landing on the Moon and made it the first country to reach the lunar south polar region. National Space Day is intended to commemorate that achievement while encouraging greater public interest in space science, technology and innovation. (ANI)
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