7 July 2010

 

Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) witnessed another major event - the Technology Demonstrator Flight of the advanced sounding rocket RH 200 from its launch station at Thumba. The rocket was successfully launched at 1550 hrs on July 7, 2010 and achieved its intended altitude of 60 km in 2 minutes.

 

ISRO has always encouraged students from universities to become partners for payload development. Towards this, students from Vellore Institute of Technology University (VITU), were being guided by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre to develop a part of the payload as a co-passenger in the RH200 technology demonstrator flight. The students payload comprised of tri-axial accelerometers, power switching module and safe arm relay unit matching the requirements of RH 200 rocket. The tri-axial accelerometer can monitor accelerations in all three directions. The power-switching module is for the power control of the payload. The faculty and students of VITU has taken keen interest during the development and test activities of these payloads at various work centres.

 

The students of the Indian Institute of Space Technology (IIST) are also progressing well in their attempt to make the first indigenous students rocket with the support of the experts from VSSC. In its continued endeavour to handhold the student community, ISRO has included a picosatellite designed by undergraduate students across India, in its forthcoming PSLV-C15 mission. The major objective of this project is to provide hands-on experience in frontier areas of Space technology such as the design, fabrication and realization of a space mission at a reduced cost.

 

After the successful flight of the Advanced Technology Vehicle ATV D01, this is a major step to demonstrate the performance of super capacitors in flight pyro systems activation. The flight successfully tested the super capacitor developed by VSSC.

 

So far TERLS has recorded 2291 flights of sounding rockets and this is the 395th flight of RH 200 rocket. During January, 2010 the RH 200 along with RH 300 MkII and RH 560 MkII rockets made a history with first ever sounding rocket launch campaign with six flights in a day and five flights within a span of 3 hrs 40 minutes from TERLS and within a minimum 2 minutes between flights and tracking two rockets one after the other using the same radar in two minutes time gap. These deployments were for studying solar eclipse effects on atmospheric regions.