International Day of Human Space Flight

Space Era began after the success story of the first artificial satellite Sputnik-I by Russia (former the Soviet Union) on October 4, 1957. We had another success story of the first man in space when Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited our planet earth for 108 minutes on April 12, 1961. These success stories were followed by two American Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buss Aldrin with their steps on the moon. Today, the global community is working on global exploration roadmap for the human exploration of our solar system.

After the great success of the first human in space, the commemorative day was established in the Soviet Union one year later, on 9 April 1962. It slowly attracted global attention and became a global celebration.  In 2000, Yuri’s Night started as a global celebration for the day on April 12 each year. Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) started celebrating the day with different events with two names, mainly Yuri’s Night and Cosmonautic Day since 2008 until 2016 in Nepal.

On 7 April 2011 United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 12 April as the ‘International Day of Human Space Flight’. Since 2017, NASO started the celebration of the day with the UN name as our strategy to streamline our activities as per the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). Currently, we celebrate all three UNOOSA events: International Day of Human Space Flight (April 12), Asteroid Day (June 30) and World Space Week (October 4-10) in Nepal.

‘It was really awesome to talk with a double hero and cosmonaut Mr. Dzhanibekov. Having interaction with him, I felt like as if I was in the space for a while. Thanks to NASO and its progressive thought to introduce a spaceman within the youngsters.’ –Saroj

Our program allowed our audience to meet and greet with famous astronauts and cosmonauts in past. In 2013, we had a great presence of Cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov to motivate young minds toward a career in STEM. In 2017, we had a virtual presence of NASA Astronaut Sandra Magnus representing American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

In July 2017, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Terraztra Space Exploration to make space accessible to all. Students at Pulchowk Campus, Institute of Engineering (IOE), Tribhuvan University (TU) have designed a payload for the High Altitude Balloon and sent to Mexico for the test. We also started a Terranaut Nepal, a national competition for Nepali citizen of age 18-65 years. To be in the competition, one has to play an online mobile game called ‘Cosmo Run Space Dash’ (currently available in android version only). Selection of the top three players has been scheduled for June 2018 and may extend till September as per the availability of the time at Yuri Gagarin Cosmonautic Center, Russia as per our Terraztra.

On March 16, 2018, we announced our initiatives on Space Robotics and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) as a part of our space science activities which will mainly focus on education and research activities and aim to contribute to global exploration roadmap by 2050.

In 2018, we intend to pay our tribute to Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space as a part of our International Day of Human Space Flight 2018 celebration in Nepal with a week-long activity during April 6-12, 2018.

For all the latest information about our activities for International Day of Human Space Flight, contact us at info@nepalastronomicalsociety.org