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Satnews Daily
July 2nd, 2018

World's Lightest SmallSat From India Gains a NASA Launch


In Chennai, India, four students have been selected by NASA for a satellite launch — the students built the world's lightest satellite — all four are students of Hindustan Institute of Technology and Sciences.

These students received this opportunity as they have successfully built a satellite that weighs 33.39 grams. This venture was the students' flagship project and the first-year student lead said, “We’ve always wanted to make a rocket. But it is heavy and expensive. The negative parameters were high. That’s when I got to know about the Cubes in Space competition and we started working on building a satellite. They said it needs to have 10 parameters. But we thought we could take that up to 20.”

The smallsat can study weather, temperature, pressure, humidity and understands those variations according to altitude. Secondly, as the satellite is being sent via a balloon, the craft observes the trajectory of the balloon, as well. Lastly, as the outer part of the satellite is made up of 3D printed PLA Nylon, it can observe if space changes its formation in micro gravity. 

The students applied last year and entered the competition by the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, conducted by NASA and idoodle. The four students are Harikrishnan, Amarnath, Giri Prasad and Sudhi. The weight and working of the satellite were authenticated by IIT Madras.

Story sourced from MirrorNowNews.com.