Tirupati: Vice-President Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated World Space week -2017 at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota of Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh.

Speaking on the occasion Mr Venkaiah Naidu said, “India has showed progress in developing satellites. In the space experiments India has been topping the list among the countries in the world. Foreign satellites are often sent to space from our rockets, which makes all of us proud.”

Earlier Mr Venkaiah Naidu visited different departments in SHAR. Isro chairman Kiran Kumar, SHAR director Kunhi Krishnan explained the various departments to the Vice- President. Application of space technology for societal needs has brought unimaginable changes in the human lives on this planet earth. All the space faring nations are celebrating the World Space Week during October 4-10 every year to inspire the international community towards more and more applications of Space Technology for the humankind. October 4 signifies the launch of first Satellite, Sputnik-1 in 1957.

Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota the Spaceport of India, one of the lead centeres under the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) was traditionally celebrating the World Space week with a gamut of public outreach programmes at Sriharikota. The outreach programme on the occasion of World Space Week has started spreading its wings by moving out from Sriharikota to nearby places like Tirupati, Vijayawada and Guntur last year.

The World Space Week programme by SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota took a new shape in 2016 by spreading the activities to the 14 selected locations in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu from October r to October 10 to propagate the benefits of Indian Space Programme to majority of scientific, academic and general public.

Building upon the same trend, WSW - 2017 will be celebrated this year by SDSC SHAR at 22 selected locations in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Odisha from October 4 to October 10 to propagate the benefits of Indian Space Programme to majority of people and stimulate young minds.