This Indian Teenager Developed World’s Smallest Satellite- KalamSat

By Shariq Hussain

Posted on May 17, 2017

Rifath Shahrook, an 18-year old student from Tamil Nadu, has developed the world’s smallest and lightest satellite, named KalamSat. This experiment of an 18-year-old Indian student will be carried out by NASA for the first time.

Rifath Sharook is Class 12 student from Tamil Nadu’s Pallapatti town. He named the satellite as ‘KalamSat’, after India’s nuclear scientist and former President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. The satellite will be carried out by NASA on June 21 at NASA’s sounding rocket from Wallops Island.

About KALAMSAT:

• The satellite is made from reinforced carbon fiber polymer which weighs only 64 Grams and can easily fit into a 4 Centimeter cube.
• It will take a sub-orbital flight and after launch, the mission span would be 240 minutes.
• The satellite will operate for 12 minutes in a micro-gravity environment of space.
• The aim of the project is to take the performance of new technology to space.

This project by Sharook is the first one to be manufactured via 3D printing and got selected through a competition named ‘Cubes in Space’, which was sponsored jointly by NASA and ‘I Doodle Learning’. His experiment was funded by an organization called ‘Space Kidz India’. He had a great interest in space and he was also a subscriber of the Nasa Kid’s Club.

Speaking to Times of India, Sharook Raifath said: ” The main role of the satellite will be to demonstrate the performance of 3-D printed carbon fiber. We did a lot of research on different cube satellites all over the world and found ours was the lights.”

However, this is not the first time when Rathik Sharook stunned the world. Earlier, in 2015, Sharook had invented a 1,200g helium weather balloon from a ground in Kelambakkam. The invention was a part of ‘Young Scientist India-2015’ competition held by Space kids India.

Also, read Indian Startup by 17 year old makes to UN list.

The KalamSat satellite is a tribute to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and is already making India extremely proud. Rifath Sharook’s KalamSat will be a tremendous achievement in Indian space history.

This Indian Teenager Developed World’s Smallest Satellite- KalamSat