Bangkok, Aug 27 (Agency) ‘India’s Space Odyssey’ produced by Miditech Studios for Warner Bros Discovery / Discovery + India wins ContentAsia Award for Best Current Affairs Program for a Single Asian Market. The ContentAsia Awards held here on Friday. The inaugural Awards were held in 2020 – a pandemic moment that highlighted the gigantic demand for screen-based content. Directed by Pria Somiah, India’s Space Odyssey, celebrates the 60 year-long successful journey of India’s space programme with all its twists and turns. Narrated in Hindi by the versatile Indian actor and space enthusiast R. Madhavan, the documentary captures the landmark endeavors achieved duringIndia’s Space Programme which helps understand the tough circumstances under which ISRO succeeded, a victory considered impossible by some around the world. The journey was commenced by Dr. Homi J. Bhabha and Dr. Vikram Sarabhai on India’s quest to become a leader in space exploration and pioneering space technology.
The other finalist was Gaganyaan – Bharat ki Antriksh Udaan also a Miditech Studios Production for Discovery + India. Produced by Miditech Studios, ‘India’s Space Odyssey’ features different experts from ISRO as well as space historians & researchers and most notably, the former Chairman of ISRO, Dr. G. Madhavan Nair. Experts speak about their challenging yet wholesome journey working in the India’s Space Programme. The film documents how India decided to go to space with the visionary Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the founding father of the Indian Space Programme at the helm.
The documentary highlights the foundation set up by Homi J. Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai who guided ISRO in upholding its mission of bringing the benefits of space to the service of the nation, making it one of the most decorated and largest space agencies in the world. Successors of the same vision were the Former President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Prof. Satish Dhawan and Dr. G Madhavan Nair, some of the scientists responsible for successfully steering India into an era of rapid space exploration with Missions to Moon and Mars and technology development with its successful rocket program, SLV 3, PSLV, GSLV. Pria Somiah, Director said: “We are glad they commissioned this film that marks 6 decades of India’s space Program and airs during India’s Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav. India’s Space program is a highly topical issue today with new missions being planned like Gaganyaan – India’s Human Space Flight Mission, and the encouraging of the private sector to enter into Space Tech. And we felt; the story of how we got here is an important one to tell.”
“It’s a challenge to tell the story of 60 years in a 1 hour documentary so we chose turning points in the history of India’s Space program, interlaced with how it was impacted by geo-politics of the time; eg, the choice of Thumba, Kerala, as a Rocket launch site and how it was officially designated a UN International Scientific facility in 1968. This got the world’s space scientists to Kerala and Indian scientists greatly benefited from those interactions, as one saw these relationship grow over the decades to come.”