National Space Day is celebrated on:

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, 23rd August. India observes National Space Day on 23 August because that is the date on which Chandrayaan-3's lander Vikram made a soft landing near the Moon's south pole, on 23 August 2023. With that touchdown India became the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon (after the USSR, the USA and China) and the first to land in the south-polar region. The Prime Minister announced 23 August as National Space Day soon after the landing, and the first National Space Day was observed on 23 August 2024 under the theme 'Touching Lives while Touching the Moon'.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The date of the observance is fixed by the Chandrayaan-3 landing, and no milestone of that mission falls in May. 23 May carries no national space observance.  (b) No milestone of Chandrayaan-3 falls here — the mission launched on 14 July 2023, entered lunar orbit on 5 August 2023 and landed on 23 August 2023. The main international space observance, World Space Week, runs 4-10 October, which is also not this date.  (d) Only the day-of-month is right; the month is not. The trap in this question is that all four options share the 23rd, so a candidate who remembers 'the 23rd' but not 'August' can still be caught.

Concept: National Space Day is a commemorative day tied to a specific event: the Chandrayaan-3 soft landing of 23 August 2023. That is how most Indian national days work — the date is borrowed from the event it honours (National Science Day, 28 February, marks Raman's announcement of the Raman effect; National Handloom Day, 7 August, marks the 1905 Swadeshi movement). So the reliable way to remember 23 August is to remember the landing, not the day.

State PCS 2025 Q86 — Current Affairs & Sports PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q86 — Current Affairs & Sports PYQ with Answer