You're going to. Hi, this is Casey Dreyer, the chief of space policy here at the Planetary Society,

welcoming you to another episode of Planetary Radio Space Policy Edition.

It was in July of 2023 with Chandrian 3 that India became the fourth nation to ever safely land a spacecraft on the moon

after the US, Russia, and China. This was even more notable, I think, because it came after a string of high-profile lunar landing failures,

including India's previous attempt, Chandrion II.

And so the success of this mission truly helped establish India as one of the most capable space powers on the globe and really helps cement its growing ambitions in space. Now the history of India's space program is in

many ways it's fascinating but it's also the inverse I think of how the US

and Russia progressed. While these two big space powers

were outpacing each other in terms of space spectaculars early on in their existence,

India which founded its space program in the early 1960s around the same time,

instead focused on the more practical and immediate benefits of space.

It developed its own launch capability,

it then developed satellites for weather and communication and positioning

systems, and really avoided pursuing the type of high-profile symbol-driven events that defined other nations.

And is really only in the 21st century that this began to change and the symbolic aspects of spaceflight are now a function of or an aspect of Indian spaceflight.

First with its launches of interplanetary spacecraft including the Mars Orbiter Mission,

obviously landing now on the moon,

and now establishing its own long-term human spaceflight program.

Boyd by the success of Chandrian 3 as well as frankly increasing competition with

China Prime Minister Norendamodi has announced ambitious plans for Indian space stations and crude

lunar missions in the coming decades. So to help us understand that the

history and motivations behind these big changes and achievements with Indian spaceflight,

...