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Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station

Indian spaceport

Summary

Indian spaceport

FieldValue
imageRohini rocket.jpg
captionLaunch of RH-300 Mk2 from TERLS
locationThumba, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
coordinates
time_zoneIST
utc_offset+05:30
shortTERLS
established
operatorISRO

Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) is India's first rocket launching station and was established on 21 November 1963. Operated by ISRO, it is located in Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram, which is near the southwestern tip of mainland India, very close to Earth's magnetic equator. It is currently used by ISRO for launching sounding rockets.

The first rockets were assembled in the former St Louis High School, which now houses a space museum. The local Bishop of Trivandrum, Rev. Peter Bernard Periera, along with Vincent Victor Dereere (a Belgian) and district collector Madhavan Nair were instrumental in acquiring a large parcel of land measuring 600 acres from coastal community. Periera had given away the prayer hall and bishop's room in the local church. Minister of State for External Affairs, Lakshmi N. Menon helped to smooth bureaucratic hurdles facing the project in Delhi. H. G. S. Murthy was appointed as the first Director of Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station.

Rockets launched from the site include RH-300, M-100, Nike Apache, Arcas, Boosted Arcas, Skua 1, Centaure, Centaure 2A, Centaure 2B, Nike Tomahawk, Dragon 1, Judi-Dart, Boosted Arcas 2, Petrel 1, RH-75, Skua 2, Sandhawk Tomahawk, Menaka II, RH-125, M-100B, M-100A, RH-200 and RH-300 Mk II.

The site has five launchpads:

  • Pad 1 at , sounding rockets
  • Pad 2 at , sounding rockets
  • Pad 3 at , sounding rockets
  • Pad 4 at , sounding rockets
  • Pad 5 at , RH-300 launch complex, active after 1993

Location

Thumba's{{Cite magazine

References

References

  1. "Sounding Rockets - ISRO".
  2. Wade, Mark. (2019). "Thumba".
  3. Pal, Sanchari. (2016-11-08). "Transported on a Bicycle, Launched from a Church: The Amazing Story of India's First Rocket Launch".
  4. Joseph, Verghese. (2019-07-23). "When ISRO Aimed For the Heavens, a Tiny Church in Kerala Said Amen!".
  5. (30 November 2019). "Remembering the guiding light".
  6. Pawar, Ashwini. (Jul 29, 2015). "I'm proud that I recommended him for ISRO: EV Chitnis".
  7. Wade, Mark. (2019). "Thumba Pad 1".
  8. Wade, Mark. (2019). "Thumba Pad 2".
  9. Wade, Mark. (2019). "Thumba Pad 3".
  10. Wade, Mark. (2019). "Thumba Pad 4".
  11. Wade, Mark. (2019). "Thumba Pad 5".
  12. Iype, George. (November 20, 2003). "Forty years in Space". India Abroad.
  13. Ram, Arun. (February 19, 2015). "Rocket science of south".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

space-programme-of-india spaceports-in-asia rocket-launch-sites-in-india organisations-based-in-thiruvananthapuram 1963-establishments-in-kerala buildings-and-structures-in-thiruvananthapuram-district transport-infrastructure-completed-in-1963
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