India’s first hybrid-sounding rocket

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Key updates-

• 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.
• The organisations mentioned that 5,000 students were involved in the project. 
• 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 made by the selected top 100 students, while the rest made 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 used for probing the upper atmospheric regions and for 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. 
• With the establishment of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) in 1963 at Thumba, a location close to the magnetic equator, there was a quantum jump in the scope for aeronomy 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.

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