(UTV|COLOMBO) – Sri Lanka’s first satellite, ‘Raavana 1’ successfully reached the international Space Station (ISS) on Friday (19).
‘Raavana 1’ was launched into space at 2.16 on Thursday morning (18), marking Sri Lanka’s entry into the global space age.
The BIRDS-3 satellites from Japan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka were taken to the ISS as a cargo and boarded onto the Antares Rocket, which carried the Cygnus Cargo Spacecraft. The satellites launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s East Shore.
Designed and built at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan by Sri Lankan Research Engineers Tharindu Dayaratne and Dulani Chamika from the Arthur C. Clarke Institute, Moratuwa, ‘Raavana 1’ was designed to accomplish five missions.
Its camera mission is to take pictures of Sri Lanka and its neighbouring countries. Its Lora Demonstration Mission is to validate the module to be used to data download next satellites. The Attitude Determination and Control Mission of ‘Ravaana 1’ involves the team trying to reduce the angular velocity of the satellite using magnetic torquers.
‘Raavana 1’ weights around 1.05 kilogrammes.
The lifespan of the satellite is around one and a half-years.
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