This is the first-ever private human spacecraft launch to orbit. Its southern location (8 ° … Updated 6:07 PM ET, Sat May 30, 2020 . For starters, nobody has ever launched a rocket from the surface of another planet. NASA's space-shuttle program (1981 to 2011) used solid rockets for the first time to boost humans into space, which is notable, because unlike liquid rockets, they cannot be turned off. This facility has been extensively used for carrying out research in high energy (i.e., X- and gamma-ray) astronomy, … ASSOCIATED PRESS. TERLS was founded in Thumba in 1962 in the district of Trivandrum on the southern tip of India very close to earth's magnetic equator to launch sounding rockets… Nike Apache was the first rocket launched by India from the TERLS (Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station) of Kerala in November 1963. NASA, SpaceX launch astronauts from US soil for the first time in a decade. Featured here, the Bumper V-2 was an ambitious two-stage rocket program that topped a V-2 missile base with a WAC Corporal rocket. A new chapter in space flight began in 1950 with the launch of the first rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida: the Bumper V-2. India's space era dawned when the first two-stage sounding rocket was launched from Thumba in 1963. Since 1945, NACA (NASA's predecessor) and, since 1958, NASA have conducted the X-Plane Program. By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business. [citation needed] There is a national balloon launching facility at Hyderabad jointly supported by TIFR and ISRO. The Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) was established in 1963 at the coastal village of Thumba, in the state of Kerala. NASA flew them from Brazil, Canada, India, Norway, Pakistan, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, all across the US, and off of the converted escort carrier USNS Croatan. Thumba became well-known to the outsiders after the establishment of Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), which was the first of that kind in India. The first rocket was launched in 1939. The launch site was named the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), or India’s first space port. 2 . For each of the steps in that process, the engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are confronting a series of daunting challenges. This is a very different scenario from the one that brought Apollo astronauts home from the moon, just … The Terrier, a rocket first stage used by NASA, was … In NASA's sounding rocket program, Nike was used with Apache, Cajun, Tomahawk, Hawk, or Malemute upper stages, as well as with the Aerobee 170, 200, and 350. The first X-Plane, the Bell X-1, was the first rocket … The rocket’s first stop is at a testing center in Mississippi, for a test-firing of its rocket engines. Reports indicate the active participation of scientists R. G. Bivin, Jr., Robert Duffy, and Lawrence Cahill of NASA, and of their close relationship with Vikram Sarabhai. The upper stage was able to reach then-record altitudes of … TERRIER. The program was originally intended to create a family of experimental aircraft not intended for production beyond the limited number of each design built solely for flight research.