Key Points:
- India is set to launch a Satellite that will carry with itself a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the names of 25,000 individuals.
- The satellite is named as the Satish Dhawan Satellite, or SD SAT, which will be launched at the end of the month by the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV).
- “When we finalised the mission, we asked people to send in their names that will be sent to space. And, within a week we received 25,000 entries. Of these, 1,000 names were sent in by people from outside India. There is a school in Chennai that sent in the names of everyone. We decided to do this because it will spark interest of the people in the mission and space science,” said Dr Srimathy Kesan, founder and CEO of SpaceKidz India.
- “We have also added the name and photograph of the Prime Minister on the top panel with the words Atmanirbhar mission. This satellite has been completely developed and fabricated in India, including the electronics and circuitry,” Kesan said.
India is set to launch a Satellite that will carry with itself a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the names of 25,000 individuals. The satellite is named as the Satish Dhawan Satellite, or SD SAT, which will be launched at the end of the month by the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV).
“There is a lot of excitement in the group right now. This will be our first satellite to be deployed in space. When we finalised the mission, we asked people to send in their names that will be sent to space. And, within a week we received 25,000 entries. Of these, 1,000 names were sent in by people from outside India. There is a school in Chennai that sent in the names of everyone. We decided to do this because it will spark interest of the people in the mission and space science,” said Dr Srimathy Kesan, founder and CEO of SpaceKidz India.
“We have also added the name and photograph of the Prime Minister on the top panel with the words Atmanirbhar mission. This satellite has been completely developed and fabricated in India, including the electronics and circuitry,” Kesan said.
Why is a Bhagavad Gita and PM Modi’s photograph going with the satellite?
- The decision to send a copy of the Bhagvad Gita to space was taken on the lines of other space missions that have carried holy books such as the Bible.
- It recently came to light that Buzz Aldrin had taken the Bible with him in the Apollo 11 Lunar Module during landing on the Moon.
- He became the first person to celebrate a religious rite on a heavenly body outside Earth.
The names of ISRO chairperson Dr K Sivan and scientific secretary Dr R Umamaheswaran have been etched on the bottom panel.
Named after one of the founding fathers of India’s space program which is developed by SpaceKidz India, will also carry three scientific payloads — one to study space radiation, one to study the magnetosphere, and another that will demonstrate a low-power wide-area communication network.
The satellite will be transported to the spaceport at Sriharikota on Sunday after some design changes were made following recommendations by ISRO.
“We are conducting last-minute checks before sending over the satellite. We had to re-do the solar panel on the satellites after testing at ISRO because there was a problem with the resin and there was bulge on a few cells. But it was thought that the entire thing might ooze out in space in two to three days,” said Kesan.
