INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightEPAImage caption
The rocket carrying the satellite will be launched from Sriharikota in southern India
India has launched what it says is the world's lightest satellite ever to be put into orbit
Weighing only 1.26kg (2.6lb), the Kalamsat-V2 was made by students belonging to a space education firm.It will help ham radio operators and
"inspire schoolchildren to become the scientists and engineers of the future", India's space agency says.The Indian Space Research
Organisation (Isro) launched the satellite from its Sriharikota space centre
Isro chief K Sivan has claimed that "Kalamsat is the lightest satellite to be ever built and launched into orbit"
It is also the first to be built by a private Indian firm and launched by Isro
The celestial unit will serve as a communications satellite for ham radio transmission, a form of wireless communication used by amateurs
for non-commercial activities
An even lighter satellite, weighing 64 grams and built by the same group of students, was launched on a four-hour mission for a sub-orbital
flight from a Nasa facility in the US in June 2017
Sub-orbital spaceflights technically enter space, but do not get into orbit
Image caption
Kalamsat-V2 was made by students belonging to Space Kidz India,
Kalamsat-V2 was made by
students belonging to Space Kidz India, a Chennai-based space education firm
Srimathy Kesan, chief executive of Space Kidz India, told Indian broadcaster NDTV that the satellite took just six days to make, at a cost
of 1.2m Indian rupees ($16,887).So far nine satellites made by Indian students have found a place on space rockets
In a first, the Indian space agency is also going to reuse a stage of the rocket that was used to launch the satellite.Traditionally,
Their various segments are discarded during an ascent
Fuel is also removed.They end up as space debris - there are millions of discarded pieces of metal and other materials orbiting the Earth,
ranging from defunct satellites to old rocket segments to accidentally dropped astronaut tools
Collisions can cause a great deal of damage, and generate even more pieces of debris.Image caption
Weighing only 1.26kg
(2.6lb), the Kalamsat-V2 has been made by students belonging to a space education firm
The satellite was launched by Isro's
reliable Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) - a four-stage rocket that on this launch weighs about 260 tonnes
Its first three segments usually drop back to Earth; its fourth and final stage uses liquid propellants, and can be stopped and restarted
several times to get a spacecraft into just the right orbit.The fourth stage can take the the satellite to a height of 277km (172 miles)
above earth.But Isro gave new capability to the last stage so that it can remain active in space for up to a year."Why waste such a valuable
resource We decided to convert [the fourth stage] into an experimental orbital platform to conduct small experiments in space," said Mr
The PSLV rocket costs upwards of $28m (£21m)
The experimental orbital platform will help researchers carry out experiments in a near zero-gravity environment.Another satellite - the
740kg Microsat-R - was also taken into orbit by the PSLV
It will be used by India's military to take high-resolution photos of Earth.In this mission, the last stage of the rocket will be "moved to
a higher circular orbit" from where the Kalamsat-V2 is expected to beam down its signals."This is the first time Isro is conducting such an
experiment to reclaim a dead rocket stage and to keep it alive," Mr Sivan said
In this new approach, researchers can simply bring in their payloads or experiments which will then be plugged into the equipment bay
especially made in the spent rocket
Isro is the not the first space agency to try this "waste to wealth innovation".Jean Yves-LeGall, president of the Centre National d'Etudes
Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, says they have used it "but did not find it a cost effective way to conduct experiments in space"
Pallava Bagla is co-author of Reaching for the Stars: India's Journey for Mars and Beyond
