The first India made rocket lifted from Thumba in 1969. This 10 kg pencil rocket had propellants made in India and it was assembled in church building which is now a museum of space memorabilia. But it was the VSSC (Vikram Sarabhai Space Center) built SLV-3 which lifted India into the exclusive club of space faring nations on 18th July, 1980 by putting into orbit the 35 kg Rohini satellite. United States of America, Russia, Great Britain, France, Japan and China were the other members. Since then there is no looking bad. India’s space research was born on the VSSC campus. It has groups of specialists doing research in every field of rocketry including aerospace, aerodynamics, propulsion, avionics, thermo control structures and propellants. The aerospace group plays a key role in building launch vehicles.
Formally Indian’s launch programme was launched in 1972 when Space Commission and department of space were set up. The main objective of the programme was to provide space based services in spheres of communication, metrology, resources survey and management, develop satellites and launch vehicles and associated ground system. Our space programme can be divided into two parts:
(i) The Satellite Programme, and (ii) The Launch Programme.
There are five space centers where these programmes are carried on (i) Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) is situated in Thumba near Tiruvanthpuram in Kerela on 1000 acre campus. It is the centre for launch vehicle development, rocket research and planning and execution of launch vehicle development projects of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). Here rocket engineers