Indian space history crosses three decades of success

The space-story of our nation started with the launching of a US-made Nike Apache rocket from Thumba in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala, India. This was a two stage propeller rocket which weighed 715kg and utillised the first stage solid propellants to reach an altitude of 208km and then released the sodium vapours. The whole event took place on november 21, 1963.

But the milestone in the Indian Space History was the lauch of a "pencil" rocket which took place six years later, from Thumba again on February 22,1969. This one was a comparitively smaller rocket which weighed about only 10kg and used 350gm of solid fuel.

Following this one was the first of the SVL-3 launchings ( which failed) on August 10,1979 at SHAR. But at July 18,1980, SVL-3 made its successful flight carrying our satellite Rohini, which was put into the orbit on 8.11 am IST. Twenty other successful lauches followed this single failure, each one India's space missions more and more successful. The last among the lot was that launched from Sriharikota.

On july 18 2005, India celebrated the silver jubilee of the country's first successful flight of SVL-3. And did you know who the project leader for the same was? It was none other than our Ex- President Mr. A P J Abdul Kalam!