Tiny Satellite Launch: NASA To Send Teen Scientist’s 3D Printed Cube Into Space

NASA is set to launch an Indian teenager’s tiny satellite next month after the space enthusiast designed what he is calling the most lightweight one around.

According to a report in the BBC, 18-year-old Rifath Sharook’s device is just 0.14 pounds and was 3D printed from a carbon fiber material. It was selected for NASA’s mission in a youth design competition called Cubes in Space in April.

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On June 22, it will launch from a NASA facility in Virginia and take a suborbital flight lasting a few hours, during which time it will operate for several minutes to see how well it works under those microgravity conditions.

While the small satellite will enter space during the flight, it will not orbit the Earth, Quartz reported.

Sharook told the Business Standard that the satellite was made from scratch with “a new kind of on-board computer and eight indigenous built-in sensors to measure acceleration, rotation and the magnetosphere of the Earth.”

The satellite is called KalamSat, named for the former Indian president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a famous rocket scientist who died a couple of years ago.

Sharook is from the Tamil Nadu state in India. The BBC reported that works in a city there called Chennai, as a lead scientists at the science education organization Space Kidz India.

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In an interview with the Indian publication Student Stories, Sharook was quoted as saying that he grew up talking about space with his scientist father, who died in 2008. “I used to tell him that one day I will launch a real satellite,” the teen said. “Now that’s coming true but he is no more with me.”

According to Sharook, his goal in life is to start a private space company like SpaceX in his home country.

When asked about his role models, he said he didn’t have any: “I want to be the first Rifath, not second Edison or anyone else.”

He also told other students to aim high and not to give up on their goals.

“People say even sky is not the limit,” he said. “But for us, sky is just the beginning.”