Troposphere is a Congolese

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

family first developed in 2007 at the private enterprise Développement Tous Azimuts (DTA). The project is managed by Jean-Patrice Keka Ohemba Okese, head of DTA, a graduate of the Institut Supérieur des Techniques Appliquées (ISTA). The program aimed at launching

experimental rockets An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

that would not exceed an

altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

of 36 km. The launch site is located in an area owned by DTA at Menkao, 120 km East of

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...

. The program was financed by DTA at the beginning, but after the success of the Troposphere 2 and 4 rockets the project gained

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

support.

Rockets

Troposphere 1 and 3

Troposphere 1, which was planned for launch in April 2007, was canceled due to technical problems. Troposphere 3 scheduled for October 12, 2007 was also a failure.

Troposphere 2

The first successful rocket, Troposphere 2 (30.94 kg and 0.19 m in diameter), launched in 2007 and reached an altitude of 1500 m (1.5 km).

Troposphere 4

Troposphere 4 is the second successfully launched experimental

of the Troposphere program, managed by Jean-Patrice Keka. The rocket with a

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...

of 1 ton was launched on July 10, 2008, 5:40 pm from Menkao, east of

. The rocket reached an

of after 47 seconds, with a speed of

Mach Mach may refer to Mach number, the speed of sound in local conditions. It may also refer to: Computing * Mach (kernel), an operating systems kernel technology * ATI Mach, a 2D GPU chip by ATI * GNU Mach, the microkernel upon which GNU Hurd is bas ...

2.7. The launch of the Troposphere 4 rocket took place in the presence of the Congolese Minister of Higher Education, University and Scientific Research, Leonard Masuga Rugamika. After the success of this launch, the Congolese government decided to get involved with the Troposphere project.

Troposphere 5

Troposphere 5 is a two stage solid-propellant rocket with a thrust of 70 kN (7 tons), launched on March 29, 2009. It is the third

in the program. It was an initiative of the private enterprise Developpement Tous Azimuts (DTA) with headquarters in

Lubumbashi Lubumbashi (former names: ( French), (Dutch)) is the second-largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located in the country's southeasternmost part, along the border with Zambia. The capital and principal city of the Haut-Katanga ...

(

Katanga Province Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika Province, Tanganyika, Hau ...

), created in 2007. Troposphere 5 carrying a

rat Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus ''Rattus''. Other rat genera include ''Neotoma'' ( pack rats), ''Bandicota'' (bandicoot ...

named Kavira on board, was designed to reach an

of 36 km and a speed of

3. The rocket was launched at Menkao launch site. Launch ended in failure - the rocket took off but had deviated from its course and was lost in the distance. The cost of this rocket has been estimated at about $50,000. Despite Troposphere 5 being equipped with an escape chute, Kavira was never found and was officially reported to have died in the name of science. According to Keka the experiment provided valuable data for future tests by the DTA.

Troposphere 6

DTA is currently working on the next rocket, Troposphere 6. Troposphere 6 is a three-stage solid-propellant rocket and Keka claimed that the rocket could reached up to altitude of 200 km. Troposphere 6 was scheduled to be launched in the end of 2016. A crowd funding has been set up to support Congolese space rocket set to launch sometime between fall of 2019 to spring of 2020. Its aim is to send a satellite Njiwas into space to take a picture of Earth at an altitude of 200 km.

References

{{Reflist Science and technology in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Experimental rockets Rocket families