An Indian teenager has built what is thought could be the world’s lightest satellite, which will be put into orbit at a NASA facility in the United States in June.

Rifath Shaarook’s 64-gram device was selected as the winner in a competition co-sponsored by NASA.

The 18-year-old says its main purpose was to demonstrate the performance of 3-D printed carbon fibre. Shaarook and his team (Vinay Bharadwaj, Tanishq Dwevdi, Yagnasai, Abdul Kashif and Gobi Nath) designed this satellite at a cost of just Re. 1 lakh (US$0.02). It took them more than two years to design the satellite.

Shaarook told local media his invention will go on a four-hour mission for a sub-orbital flight.

During that time, the lightweight satellite will operate for around 12 minutes in a micro-gravity environment of space. The task of the satellite is to capture and record temperature, radiation level etc.

“We designed it completely from scratch,” he said. “It will have a new kind of on-board computer and eight indigenous built-in sensors to measure acceleration, rotation and the magnetosphere of the earth.”

The satellite has been named KalamSat after former Indian president Abdul Kalam, a pioneer for the country’s aeronautical science ambitions.

His project was selected in a challenge called Cubes in Space, organized by NASA and education company idoodle. In the contest, 86,000 designs were submitted from 57 different countries. Out of 86,000 designs, 80 got selected and Rifath’s design is one among them.

Newcomer scientist Shaarook comes from a small town in Tamil Nadu and now works as lead scientist at Chennai-based Space Kidz India, an organization promoting science and education for Indian children and teenagers. He lost his father when he was a student of Grade Five.

The KalamSat is not his first invention: at the age of 15, he built a helium weather balloon as a part of nationwide competition for young scientists.

(SD-Agencies)