Tamil Nadu Engineering Student Designs World's Lightest Satellite, to be Part of NASA Mission

An engineering student from Tamil Nadu has made name for himself with his innovation which won him the Cubes in Space global design competition. The young innovator, S Riyasdeen, is a a second-year student of Mechatronics engineering from Sastra University.

Riyasdeen created a 37 mm sized FEMTO satellites VISION SAT v1 and v2 with a payload of 30 mm weighing 33 gms and is now thethe world's lightest FEMTO satellite, the New Indian Express reported. He hails from Karanthai in Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur.

Apart from polyetherimide thermoplastic resins, the boy deployed 3D printing technology to create the satellite. The competition was conducted by National Aeronautical Space Agency (NASA) and had 1,000 participants from 73 countries. The competition was held for students between the age of 11 and 18.

The satellites are designed to record around 17 parameters with 11 sensors and VISION Sat v1 and are scheduled to be part of the SR-7 NASA Rocket Mission. The mission is likely to be launched from the Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA in June next year, while Sat v2 will be part of the NASA Balloon Mission RB-6, to be launch in August 2021.

The satellites are named as VISON SAT v1 and v2 and both are of 37 mm in size and the payload is only around 30 mm with 33 grams weight and thus it has become the world’s lightest Femto satellites”, Riyasdeen was quoted as saying.

The SASTRA-TBI in 3D Printing and Internet of Things (IoT) will offer an incubation grant of Rs 5 Lakhs to Riyasdeen to fulfill his dream of establishing a successful start-up, SASTRA Vice-Chancellor S Vaidhyasubramaniam said