India’s First Hybrid Rocket launched in Chengalpattu: Private players successfully launched India’s first hybrid sounding rocket from Pattipulam village in Tamil Nadu’s Chengalpattu district. Martin Foundation, in association with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam International Foundation and Space Zone India, launched the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Satellite Launch Vehicle Mission- 2023.
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Key Information About This Hybrid Rocket Launch:
- According to the organisations, the project involved 5,000 students.
- The selected students designed and constructed a student satellite launch vehicle (rocket) and 150 PICO satellite research experiment cubes that contained different payloads.
- The reusable rocket was built by the top 100 students, while the remaining students built the satellites.
- The rocket can be used for research in weather, atmospheric conditions and radiation.
What are sounding rockets:
Sounding rockets are one- or two-stage solid-propellant rockets that are used for investigating the upper atmosphere and doing space research. They also serve as easily affordable platforms to test or prove prototypes of new components or subsystems intended for use in launch vehicles and satellites.
A hybrid-propellant rocket is a rocket with a rocket motor that uses rocket propellants in two different phases: one solid and the other either gas or liquid. The establishment of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) in 1963 at Thumba, near the magnetic equator, marked a jump in the scope of aeronautics and atmospheric sciences in India. The launch of the first sounding rocket from Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala on 21 November 1963, marked the beginning of the Indian Space Programme
