Rohini Sounding Rocket:
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning the 200th successful launch of the Rohini RH-200 sounding rocket in a row.
- RH-200 of the Rohini sounding rocket family has completed 198 consecutive successful flights.
- The 199th launch will happen in October 2022 during the World Space Week (4th-10th October) celebrations.
- The 200th will take place either towards the end of October or the beginning of November 2022.
- Sounding rockets are one or two stage solid propellant rockets used for probing the upper atmospheric regions and for space research.
- Sounding rockets take their name from the nautical term “to sound,” which means to take measurements.
- 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.
- The launch of the first sounding rocket (American Nike-Apache) from Thumba in 1963, marked the beginning of the Indian Space Programme and was the bedrock of all the vehicles built.
- ISRO began with the launch of indigenously built sounding rockets from 1965. The ISRO launched its own version – Rohini RH-75 – in 1967.
- In 1975, all sounding rocket activities were cluttered under the Rohini Sounding Rocket (RSR) Programme.
- The series of sounding rockets are called Rohini series with RH 200, RH 300 and RH 560 being the most important among them.
