NASA launches world’s lightest satellite designed by 18-year-old Tamil Nadu student
India once again broke a global space record by launching the world’s lightest satellite weighing a mere 64 grams, called Kalamsat, designed and developed not by professional space scientists and engineers, but by 18-year-old Tamil Nadu student Rifath Sharook and his team. The tiny satellite, named after Abdul Kalam, was flown by a Nasa sounding rocket and the lift-off was from the space agency’s Wallop Island facility around 3 pm (IST). Kalamsat was the only Indian payload in the mission. The satellite, weighing a mere 64 grams, can be held in one’s palm is a 3.8cm cube and its structure is fully 3D-printed with reinforced carbon fiber polymer. It is equipped with a nano Geiger Muller counter which will measure radiation in space.
