With the start of the New year 2019, there is good news for all the tech buffs. Nepal is going to launch its own satellite soon by Baishak 2076. The Kyutech, Japan (Kyushu Institute of Technology) has assisted in the launch of Nepal’s own Satellite.
According to the Technology department head at NAST Mr. Rabindra Dhakal, Nepal Government has provided Rs 18 million to launch the satellite. Two Nepali engineers at Kyutech will lead the satellite launch. One of them Mr. Abhash Maskey is doing a Ph.D. in “Space technology Engineering” and another Mr. HareRam Shrestha is doing a Masters in Electrical Engineering at the University. As known, Kyutech is the World’s No. 1 academic operator of Small Satellites.
The name of the Nepali Satellite has created some confusion here. The name of the Satellite is Nepali Sat-1 under the Birds-3 project. Nasa will live stream the launching of the Satellite at 2:30 am Nepali Time on Baishak 5, 2076 (April 18, 2019)
ALSO READ: Nepal, Thales Alena Space sign MOU on launching own Nepal’s Satellite
Nepal’s Own satellite
Till now, Nepal has been using satellite link of other countries for communication and other purposes, paying huge sums of money. With the launch of own satellite, Nepal could overcome the huge cost and National security compromise.
The Satellite will be mainly used for taking photographs of the country on a daily basis and disseminate information about its mountains, hills, Terai, Glaciers, roads as well as floods.
Till now, the development of satellite has already been completed. Engineering module completed in August, while Environment test succeeded in December. So, the Satellite is ready to launch in Baishak, 2076 (Mid April 2019). Now, they are working to make a Ground Station, required for the communication to Satellite. Once everything is in place, NAST scientists and MoCIT officials will visit Japan in Baishak for the launch.
Update: NepaliSat-1, the first satellite of Nepal launched.
NepaliSat-1 is the first satellite of Nepal, launched from US. Another satellite project from a tender will be from France. Both the countries had signed a MoU to launch Nepal’s full fledged Satellite.
Nano-Satellite
Earlier we posted news regarding Nepal’s own Satellite. But it seems the first Satellite to launch is not from the earlier Tender. As known, the new satellite is of Small size, also called Small satellite or Nano Satellite of 10 cubic centimeter form factor and around 1 kg weight. There are altogether 1000 such smallsats in the space now. Although it is preferred by Governments, the launch vehicle accidents discourage the smallsats deployment.
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