COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will launch its first ever satellite into space in April marking its entry into the global space age, according to officials from Sri Lanka’s Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education.
The satellite, which will be named RAAVANA-1, is a research satellite built by two Sri Lankan research students – Tharindu Dayaratne and Dulani Chamika Vithanage – in collaboration with the Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies. Tharindu is an electrical and electronics engineer of the University of Peradeniya and a research engineer at the Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies while Dulani is a mechatronics engineer from the same institute.
The satellite was designed and built at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan and is 1,000 cubic cm in size and weighs 1.1 kg.
RAAVANA-1 was officially handed over to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on February 18, and will be sent to the International Space Station on April 17, through the assistance of Cygnus-1, a spacecraft from the United States.
The satellite is expected to fulfill five missions including the capturing of pictures of Sri Lanka and its surrounding regions.
The RAAVANA-1 is expected to orbit 400 km away from earth. It will have a minimum lifespan of one and half years.
