India's First Satellite — Aryabhata Launched

On April 19, 1975, India's first satellite — Aryabhata, named after the 5th-century mathematician who calculated pi and proposed the rotation of the Earth — was launched from the Soviet Kapustin Yar cosmodrome aboard a Russian Cosmos-3M rocket. The 360-kilogram satellite, designed and built entirely by Indian scientists at ISRO, was intended to conduct experiments in X-ray astronomy, solar physics, and aeronomy. Although a power failure cut the mission short after five days, Aryabhata was a landmark achievement: it proved that India could design and build satellites domestically. The mission occurred just 28 years after independence, when India was still classified among the world's poorest nations. Aryabhata demonstrated that scientific ambition was not the exclusive province of wealthy superpowers and set the stage for India's emergence as a major space power.