NEW DELHI , India ( CNN ) -- Flashback to 1984 : As a child , I am glued to my family 's black-and-white television set for our daily dose of evening entertainment and news on India 's national broadcaster . India holds its first rocket launch from a fishing village in southern India on November 21 , 1963 . But this is no ordinary newscast : Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is speaking via videolink with astronaut Rakesh Sharma , who is aboard a space station . Indian pride soared as Squadron Leader Sharma , an Indian Air Force pilot , became the first in the nation to explore the celestial realm , part of a joint mission with what was then the Soviet Union . I do n't remember what show it was , but it etched India 's `` astronomical feat '' in the minds of those who watched it , including a 10-year-old like me . But the Indian connection to space was much older than that milestone . In the country 's space calendar , November 21 , 1963 , is a key date : It marks the first rocket launch from a fishing village in southern India . Nike-Apache , a two-stage sounding rocket imported from the United States , took off that day from Thumba , a site that eventually became a favorite location for similar experiments by international scientists . So far , there have been some 2,200 sounding-rocket launches from that facility , according to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center . But the South Asian nation 's space program has been far more expansive -- the Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO ) has more than 60 events that it lists as `` milestones '' since 1962-63 , which includes the successful use of polar and geosynchronous satellite launch vehicles . See India 's space odyssey in photos » . Fast forward to 2008 : The country launches its first unmanned mission to the Moon in what is being seen as the 21st-Century , Asian version of the space race between the United States and the USSR -- but this time the two nations involved are India and China . In September of that same year , a Chinese astronaut took a spacewalk , his country 's first . A month later , India sent Chandrayaan-1 -- Chandrayaan means `` moon craft '' in Sanskrit -- on a two-year mission to take high-resolution , three-dimensional images of the lunar surface , especially the permanently-shadowed polar regions . The craft , carrying payloads from the United States , the European Union and Bulgaria , will search for evidence of water or ice and attempt to identify the chemical composition of certain lunar rocks . Nonetheless , India maintains competition does not drive its space program . Vikram Sarabhai , seen as the father of India 's space program , made this case for government funding of the program in the 1960s : . `` We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically-advanced nations in the exploration of the Moon or the planets or manned space-flight , '' Sarabhai said , according to ISRO 's Website . `` But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally , and in the community of nations , we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society , '' said Sarabhai , in what the agency described as a `` vision '' for India 's space endeavors . Earlier this year , the Indian government increased the federal budget for space research to around $ 1 billion from some $ 700 million , ISRO spokesman S. Satish told CNN , as scientists propose to send astronauts into space by 2015 on solely Indian missions . ISRO was also studying the feasibility of sending a manned craft to the Moon by 2020 , Satish said , adding that plans for unmanned Mars missions in the coming years have not been finalized . The space agency dropped a TV-sized probe on the Moon last November that it said sent sufficient signals to the mother craft before a crash landing . But the country 's space ambitions are not limited to public research endeavors , Satish said . `` We have just entered the commercial satellite launch market , '' he said , including what ISRO noted is now the world 's largest constellation of remote-sensing satellites . These satellites , according to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center , capture images of the Earth that are used in a range of applications -- agriculture , water resources , urban development , mineral prospecting , environment , forestry , drought and flood forecasting , ocean resources and disaster management . Another major system , or INSAT , is used for communication , television and meteorology . `` We have mastered the space technology in these 40 years . We have already sent an unmanned mission to the Moon and now we look forward to sending a manned one there , '' Satish said .
India made its first rocket launch on November 21 , 1963 . Indian space group list more than 60 events in the last 100 years that were launched from a single country or continent. India launches its first unmanned mission to the moon in 2008 . The South Asian nation is seen as being in an Asian space race with China .