The Pragyan Rover — a moon-sized delightful coincidence #Chandrayaan3
India celebrates a massive achievement in its space exploration journey. Yesterday, 1.4 billion people watched with the excitement only seen in cliffhanger cricket matches as the Vikram lander made its descent. We learnt terms such as “powered descent”, “rough braking”, “altitude hold” and (with quick assistance from Google for these unfamiliar words), confidently made small talk on these while our eyes were glued to the screen waiting for the countdown to “0/0/0” (horizontal velocity/ vertical velocity/ altitude). After several tense moments of nervousness and anticipation, it did get there and, when it did, the feeling was unbelievable. Vikram the lander, named in tribute to Vikram Sarabhai, ISRO’s founder made it safely to the moon’s surface. We looked up at the sky — the moon was shining as its usual bright crescent, but it was special today because it now proudly housed a valuable souvenir from India.
Such are the moments that define a generation. Watching with kids, one hoped that this provided them the inspiration to explore far beyond the familiar and uncover the secrets of nature that science can reveal in all their glory. This was a massive scientific achievement and a big salute to all the people who had the vision to invest in this space, pun intended. For a country that’s often depicted as the country of snake charmers, Bollywood stars and whole host of superstitions, well we have those too — but that’s not the headline anymore, is it? This is a country with phenomenal technical and scientific talent — both men and women. The scientists have a next-door-neighbour look and feel with their humble clothes and manner of speaking but their skills are world-class. Don’t underestimate that and let stereotypes fool you. These are the people writing the narrative of the future for India.
For amateur space enthusiasts, this was a high like no other. Buckets lists are now changing from “watch a NASA rocket launch at the Kennedy Space Center” to “watch an ISRO rocket launch at Sriharikota”, with good reason. They look forward to learning about the moon’s surface, climate and other scientific learnings — all the information that will be revealed by that special little rover that’s making its mark, literally, on the moon’s surface as we speak.
Which brings me to the delightful coincidence mentioned in the title. With a shared nerdy inclination, the husband and I used code-names for both kids before they were born. The older one was code-named R2D2, the famous droid from Star Wars. It was a popular code-name and many years later, some friends still ask “How is Artoo?”. When the younger one was on the way, we wondered what would work as well as R2D2. C3PO was too predictable. A few years before that, NASA’s Mars mission had sent a rover called “Curiosity” to the planet. This rover, still active today, stood for an adventurous and scientific spirit that we loved. And so, the little one was code-named “Curiosity”.
Nine months later, the boy was born and now we looked for a name that could take that spirit forward. And after a lot of searching and deliberation, we landed on …. “Pragyan”.
Imagine then our delight when, in mid-2019, ISRO announced the Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission with a lander, Vikram, and a rover … Pragyan!! What an unbelievable coincidence — we were over the moon, again pun intended. Sep 2019 brought some disappointment but still a lot of pride in ISRO, when Vikram & Pragyan almost made it to the finish line but not quite. And then on Aug 23, 2023 … well you know that story.
We are so excited that the Pragyan rover is now out on its moonwalk and will be making huge contributions to scientific understanding of the heretofore hidden lunar surface near the moon’s south pole.
For the Pragyan in our lives, we hope this is an inspiration to aim big and to carry forward the wisdom and exploration we wished for him in both his code-name and actual name. A special moment for us :).
Thank you ISRO for all you are doing. You are making the country, and indeed the world, so proud of your achievements. Keep going boldly where no one has dared to go before — the universe is your playground.
