Indian tricolour flutters at edge of space

New Delhi: The Indian tricolour was unfurled at the edge of space at an altitude of nearly 30 km by a BalloonSAT launched by an organisation promoting awareness about space sciences in the country.

SpaceKidz, the Chennai-based organisation, shared a video on its social media platforms of the Indian tricolour fluttering away to glory attached to a helium balloon that reached to the edge of space.

“We released the BalloonSat on January 27 this year from Chennai. It unfurled the Indian tricolour at an altitude of nearly 30 km,” Srimathy Kesan, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Space Kidz India told PTI.

The video was released on Monday to mark the completion of 75 years of Independence, she said.

Kesan said a GoPro camera attached to the BalloonSat captured the video of the tricolour fluttering in space.

The payload sent into the upper reaches of the atmosphere were recovered after it splashed into the sea.

Space Kidz had encouraged 750 girl students from government schools across the country to develop AzaadiSat, which was set for launch on August 7 onboard the maiden flight of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV)-D1.

The SSLV-D1 failed to put the AzaadiSat and Earth Observation Satellite-02 in the desired orbit. The mission failed because the SSLV-D1 placed the satellites in an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one, leaving them “unusable.”

Kesan said the girl students, who had gathered at Sriharikota on August 7, were undeterred by the failure of the satellite to reach its desired orbit and were keen to launch AzaadiSat-2.

“We had spent Rs 68 lakh in building AzaadiSat-1. We are now looking for investors for building AzaadiSat-2,” Kesan said.

She said the girl students were elated at their visit to Sriharikota and were excited to interact with scientists at ISRO who explained the intricacies of the satellite launch.