In a jubilant Twitter message last week, Turkey’s state-owned company Roketsan — the country’s primary rocket and missile manufacturer — announced it had successfully test-launched a sounding rocket into space. “The sounding rocket, which we manufactured with local and national technologies as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vision and efforts led by SSB [Defense Industry Presidency], broke through the boundary of space on Oct. 29!” the post read.
The company then shared footage of the test on YouTube. The aim of the 135-kilometer (84-mile) flight into space, launched from the Black Sea province of Sinop, was to test the maneuver control and thrust management systems of the rocket.