The India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched 10 rockets in two days to study the partial annular solar eclipse, which was observed by many people on its path, which included many African and Asian countries.
The fleet of small suborbital rockets was launched for the purpose of studying the effects of a sun-moon alignment on Friday the 15th Jan,2010. The eclipse was the longest eclipse of the millennium. The Rohini series indigenous sounding rockets were launched by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station and the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
The VSSC launched two each of the type RH 300 Mk II and RH 200 on Thursday while three sounding rockets of the type RH 300 Mk II and two sounding rockets of RH 200 from Thumba were launched on Friday.
The RH 300 Mk II and RH 200 rockets can attain an attitude of 116 km and 70 km, respectively. Another larger rocket of RH 560 Mk II series was launched from Sriharikota on Friday with the capability to attain an altitude of 548 km.
The rockets aimed at collecting relevant data on atmospheric structure and dynamics at different altitudes from the earth. The eclipse was at its peak at about 1:15 p. m. local time in India. The launch took place from Sriharikota at 1.15 PM.
The Solar eclipse gives us an opportunity to study how such events impact the photochemistry and electrodynamics within Earth's atmosphere and additionally drop in sunlight; lower temperatures and decreased levels of ionization within the atmosphere can also be observed.
The Solar Ecplise on 15th Jan,2010 offered a unique opportunity to scientists to investigate the effects of fast varying solar flux on the photochemistry and electrodynamics of the different atmospheric regions, especially the equatorial mesopause and ionosphere-thermosphere regions.”
The data collected by the rockets would be linked to the observations made from the ground to get insights into various phenomenas which occur during the eclipse.
