Pakistan's first woman astronaut, congratulated India on its attempt to make a soft-landing on the Moon and called the Chandrayaan-2 mission a “giant leap for South Asia.”
Pakistan’s first woman astronaut Namira Salim, congratulates ISRO for its “The Chandaryaan 2 lunar mission, is indeed a giant leap for South Asia, which not only makes the region, but also the entire global space industry proud.”
Writing for digital science magazine Scientia, Salim said, “The Chandaryaan 2 lunar mission is indeed a giant leap for South Asia which not only makes the region but the entire global space industry proud.”
Salim’s remarks come amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the government’s move to scrap special status for Jammu and Kashmir. She further said political boundaries dissolve in space while lauding regional developments in the space sector in South Asia.
“Regional developments in the Space sector in South Asia are remarkable and no matter which nation leads—in space, all political boundaries dissolve and in space—what unites us, overrides, what divides us on Earth,” she wrote in the magazine.
The first Pakistani to have gone to space aboard Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Salim is also the first Pakistani to have traveled to the North and the South pole and the first Asian to skydive (in tandem) from Mount Everest.
India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission has not been successful. The lander of the spacecraft, called Vikram, did not slow down at the expected rate towards the latter part of its descent, and most likely hit the lunar surface at a speed greater than required for a safe landing.
Chandrayaan-2 ‘giant leap for South Asia’, says Pakistan’s first woman astronaut
Namira Salim, Pakistan's first woman astronaut, congratulates ISRO for its “The Chandaryaan 2 lunar mission is indeed a giant leap for South Asia which not only makes the region but the entire global space industry proud.”