A nanosatellite will carry a copy of Bhagavad Gita, a photograph of Prime Mister Narendra Modi, and names of 25,000 individuals to space by February-end. The nanosatellite called Satish Dhawan Satellite, or SD SAT is named after one of the founding fathers of India’s space programme.It will be launched at the end of the month by the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV).
The nanosatellite has been privately developed by SpaceKidz India, an organization dedicated to encouraging space science among students, and has been named after Prof. Satish Dhawan, one of the founding fathers of India’s space programme. It will also carry three scientific payloads — one to study space radiation, one to study the magnetosphere, and another that will demonstrate a low-power wide-area communication network. Dr Srimathy Kesan, founder and CEO of SpaceKidz India, expressing his excitement, said: “This will be our first satellite to be deployed in space. When we finalised the mission, we asked people to send in their names that will be sent to space. And, within a week we received 25,000 entries. Of these, 1,000 names were sent in by people from outside India”.
On sending Bhagavad Gita, Kesan said this idea was inspired by other space missions that have carried holy books such as Bible. Further, in the wake of the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat programme, the organisation decided to send PM Modi’s photograph to space on the top panel along with the words ‘Aatmanirbhar mission’.
