Thiruvananthapuram: On Friday, the skies of Thiruvananthapuram will witness a spectacular display of a long trail of interleaved patterns of white and blue light due to chemi-luminescence, which is the result of an experiment being conducted from Thumba Equitorial Rocket Launching Station – TERLS, VSSC. This is a study and is being undertaken by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre under the SOUnding Rocket Experiment (SOUREX) programme, which utilises the RH-300 MkII sounding rocket to study the Equatorial E and lower ionosphere regions of the atmosphere.
The objective of the experiment is to measure the neutral wind in the dynamo region (80-120 km) of the equatorial ionosphere using the indigenously developed Electron Density and Neutral Wind Probe (ENWi) and perform cross-validation using an independent Tri Methyl Aluminium (TMA) release technique. This will be the 21st launch of the RH300 sounding rocket developed by VSSC. The launch is scheduled at 7 p.m. on Friday from Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), Thiruvananthapuram.
