"Pallithura is a village in the district of Trivandrum, the capital city of Kerala state in India. The villagers of Pallithura are now famous for their sacrifice in 1962 of most of their village for creating the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS).

The formation of TERLS was the basis of the Indian Space Program. In history, Pallitura is considered as one of the places where St. Francis Xavier established a church. This church has now been transformed to the space museum of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. The revival of interest in the history of Pallithura resulted as a result of former President Abdul Kalam's mentioning of it in his books and speeches."