The Aryavarth Express
Agency(New Delhi): A recent NASA mission, which occurred during the last total solar eclipse, was orchestrated under the leadership of Aroh Barjatya, a researcher originally from India. The mission involved the deployment of sounding rockets specifically designed to investigate the impact on Earth’s upper atmosphere when the sun’s light temporarily decreases over certain areas.
On April 8, NASA initiated the launch of three sounding rockets from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This initiative, part of the Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) project, aimed to explore atmospheric responses during the solar eclipse observable in North America.
Aroh Barjatya, currently a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, managed this mission. At the university, he also oversees the Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab.
Expressing his thanks on LinkedIn, Aroh extended his deepest gratitude towards his colleagues at various institutions, his students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and the staff at NASA Wallops Sounding Rocket Program Office and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He highlighted their crucial roles in successfully conducting six complex rocket missions within a six-month period.
Aroh Barjatya was raised in India, where he attended schools in several cities including Patalganga, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Pilani, and Solapur, before earning a degree in electronics engineering from Walchand Institute of Technology, Solapur. He moved to the United States in 2001, where he completed his master’s in electrical engineering at Utah State University and later pursued a PhD in spacecraft instrumentation at the same institution, as shared by his sister Apurva Barjatya.