January 13, 2025
The third edition of the START programme, START-2025, was inaugurated by Chairman, ISRO / Secretary, DOS, in online mode, on January 9, 2025, from ISRO Headquarters, Bengaluru. The inaugural event marked the beginning of the twenty-days long (from January 9 to 29, 2025) online lecture series, to be delivered by eminent scientists from different institutes across the country, including ISRO/DOS centres.
Primarily aimed at the final year Under Graduate and Post Graduate students of physical sciences, engineering and technology of Indian academic institutes, the START programme provides a broad overview of several facets of space science and exploration. The START programme benefits, on an average, nearly forty thousand students, teachers, and space enthusiasts in general, and since the year 2023, has created an impact on the community of senior students and faculty members of academic institutes, to embrace space science and technology as career-path. The START event, every year, is offered with specific themes related to space science and technology. The maiden START event, i.e. START-2023, was on the theme of ‘Overview of Space Science and Technology’. The theme for START-2024 was ‘Exploration of the Solar System’, while in this year, START-2025 has the theme ‘Future of India’s Space Exploration’. Every year, about a few hundreds of academic institutes volunteer as nodal centres, to facilitate their students to attend this event. START-2025 event has 563 institutes serving as nodal centres.
The participants of the START programme fall under three categories, viz. Category-1 (those who participate by enrolling under a nodal centre), Category-2 (registered individual participants (including students who are not eligible / could not join through the category-1) of any background and Category-3 (individual space enthusiasts, who attend the lectures through YouTube). The category-1 students get the opportunity to appear in an online test conducted after the conclusion of the course, while the category-2 students get the opportunity to participate in quiz contests after each lecture. Both the category 1 and 2 participants are given suitable certificates, subject to a few conditions.
As a follow-on, a few toppers among the category-1 students are provided opportunity to participate in a specially curated students’ session in the National Space Science Symposium (NSSS), where they are offered advanced workshops on space science & technology, opportunities to closely interact with senior scientists of ISRO/DOS, as well as present their scientific ideas. Connections are established among these students so as to build a strong network of like-minded scientifically oriented future generation of space scientists and technologists.
During the inaugural event of START-2025, the address by Chairman, ISRO / Secretary, DOS specially targeted the student community to make them aware of their crucial role to build the advanced capabilities of India’s space science and technology. He inspired the students by urging them to find out their own capabilities and introspect how may they contribute to the advancement of the space science exploration of India. The importance of the Space Vision 2047 was emphasized where the country envisions its own space station, the Bharatiya Antariksha Station (BAS) and the scenario where Indians will land on the Moon and come back to the Earth safely after performing scientific experiments, all with indigenous technology. Chairman, ISRO / Secretary, DOS was joined by Shri A S Kiran Kumar, Chair, Apex science Board, ISRO, former Chairman, ISRO / Secretary, DOS, member of the Space Commission; Shri Victor Joseph, Scientific Secretary, ISRO; Dr. Raghavendra Pratap Singh, Director of the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), ISRO, Dehradun; Dr. Tirtha Pratim Das, Director of the Science Programme Office, ISRO Headquarters; Dr. Harish Karnatak, Head, GIT&DL Department, IIRS, ISRO, and Dr. Praveen Kumar K, Deputy Director, Science Programme Office, ISRO Headquarters. The inaugural event was followed by the introductory lecture by Dr. Tirtha Pratim Das on the ‘Past, Present and Future of Indian Space Exploration: Context for START-2025’.
ISRO encourages the space enthusiasts to watch the lectures through the YouTube channel of the IIRS Digital Learning Programme, https://youtube.com/@iirsoutreachdehradun. More details on the START programme, including the lecture schedule and study material are available through the website https://jigyasa.iirs.gov.in/START.