Thumba
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Thumba തുമ്പ |
|
|---|---|
 Thumba
|
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| Coordinates: 8°31′0″N 76°52′0″E / 8.51667°N 76.86667°ECoordinates: 8°31′0″N 76°52′0″E / 8.51667°N 76.86667°E | |
| Country |
 India
|
| State | Kerala |
| District | Thiruvananthapuram |
| Languages | |
| • Official | Malayalam, English |
| Time zone | IST (UTC+5:30) |
| Vehicle registration | KL- |
Thumba is a suburb of Thiruvananthapuram city, capital of Kerala, India.
Till 1963, the obscure village of Thumba would not have merited a second look. A quintessential Kerala fishing hamlet with thatched huts, coconut groves and peaceful sea, it was an unlikely setting for a rocket launch station. However, it did have something that caught the interest of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme. A small church dedicated to St Mary Magdalene that was located on the Earth’s magnetic equator.
The magnetic equator is an imaginary line around the planet that connects all the points where a magnetic needle, when freely suspended, is horizontal. It is scientifically important because the magnetic equator is all where the Equatorial Electrojet exists – a stream of electrons whizzing across the sky, about 110-120 km above the Earth’s surface.
Sounding rockets, or the first rockets sent out by any space programme, test and study these electrons for research in the fields of physics, astronomy, and meteorology. These rockets are the baby steps taken before the establishment of a full-fledged space programme and Dr Sarabhai felt that Thumba was the best place to launch them. In fact, Thumba’s location at 8°32’34” N and 76°51’32” E is ideal for low-altitude, upper atmosphere and ionosphere studies.
So, one fine day, Dr Sarabhai and his fellow scientists (including Dr APJ Abdul Kalam) went to Thumba to talk to the then-bishop of Trivandrum who lived in the house adjacent to the church. They were interested in acquiring the church and the nearby land for their first rocket launch. Instead of giving them a definite answer, Reverend Peter Bernard Pereira asked them to attend the Sunday mass that week, where he would put the question to the parishioners.
At the mass, the bishop explained the scientific mission and asked the permission of his congregation to hand over the church to the scientists. In his book Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has described this particular incident beautifully.
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Wikipedia