ISRO to launch rockets to study solar eclipse
January 13th, 2010 - 1:11 pm ICT by IANS
Chennai, Jan 13 (IANS) The Indian space agency will launch a series of rockets from its two centres between Thursday and Sunday to study Friday’s solar eclipse and its aftereffects.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is getting ready to send up a series of sounding rockets - rockets carrying instruments to measure the physical parameters of the upper atmosphere - from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh and Thumba in Kerala to study the effects of the solar eclipse.
The solar eclipse Friday will be for a duration of 11.8 minutes. The sounding rockets will be fired before and after.
“On Jan 15 and 17, Rohini 560 (RH 560) sounding rockets will be launched in a parabolic flight path to measure various atmospheric and ionospheric parameters connected with the solar eclipse,” Satish Dhawan Space Centre Associate Director M.Y.S. Prasad told IANS from Sriharikota.
The nine-metre RH 560 rockets weigh 1.5 tonnes and carry a 100-kg payload of instruments each. The two-stage rocket will take the instruments 500 km above the earth’s surface.
From Sriharikota, there will be one launch each on Friday and Sunday.
Most of the rockets will be launched from ISRO’s Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) in Kerala.
According to ISRO officials, four rockets will be launched Thursday from TERLS and five Friday.
The rockets fired from TERLS are smaller than RH 560. They will reach 75 to 120 km above the earth.
A similar coordinated experiment was conducted in 1980 and since then ISRO has set up several facilities to study the data.
- ISRO to launch rockets to study Friday's solar eclipse - Jan 13, 2010
- Indian rockets study solar eclipse, effect on atmosphere (Lead) - Jan 15, 2010
- India launching rockets to study solar eclipse effects - Jan 15, 2010
- Advanced sounding rocket launched with students' payload - Jul 07, 2010
- India's latest satellite to beam pictures from Thursday - Apr 25, 2011
- ISRO's PSLV C-16 rocket launched successfully - Apr 20, 2011
- India launching satellite to study tropical climate - Sep 10, 2011
- Indian rocket launch countdown makes smooth progress - Oct 11, 2011
- Rocket failure: Russian, Indian scientists differ on cause - Feb 22, 2011
- Indian rocket hurls aloft four satellites - Oct 12, 2011
- New ISRO centre to control spy satellite launch - Apr 09, 2012
- Mixed bag for Indian space agency in 2010 - Dec 30, 2010
- Risat-1 catapults India into a select group of nations (Second Lead) - Apr 26, 2012
- A year of satisfactory space missions (2011 in Retrospect) (With images) - Dec 26, 2011
- Indigenous space engine test Saturday - May 11, 2012
Tags: aftereffects, associate director, flight path, indian space research, indian space research organisation, ionospheric parameters, isro, kerala, launch, parabolic flight, physical parameters, prasad, solar eclipse, sounding rockets, space agency, space centre, sriharikota, stage rocket, thumba, upper atmosphere