India's First Fully Private Satellite Placed in Orbit by SpaceX

The ExseedSat-1, built with the contributions of several ham operators and with the help of small Indian firms, is expected to play a major role during natural disasters as it facilitates effective two-way communication through a simple hand-held walkie-talkie with a beam antenna.

Euphoria gripped India's southern city of Hyderabad on Tuesday after SpaceX announced that all 64 satellites on board the Falcon-9 rocket had been successfully placed on orbit.

The mission, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, included a one kilogram CubeSat named ExseedSat1 which was fully conceived, designed and made by Indian start-up Exseed Space without taking any help from the state-owned space agency ISRO.

The startup was founded by Ashhar Farhan and Kris Nair. The startup claims that it is also part of the private consortium who won the historic AIT bid last year to build large satellites for the Indian government.

"ExseedSat-1 carried an amateur radio payload. Licensed radio amateurs around the world will be able to access, receive and talk through it using a simple hand-held walkie-talkie with beam antenna", Kris Nair, one of the founders said.

Exseed Space is working towards setting up India's first contract satellite manufacturing facility. Once operational, the facility will cater to the growing global demands of manufacturing CubeSats, NanoSats, and MicroSats (1U/2U/3U/6U). Platforms the start-up builds are based on units of 10cm by 10cm by 10cm CubeSats.

The power output is selectable between 1 watt and 0.5 watts. The purpose of the mission is to interest student outreach. Depending on the life of the battery, the satellite may provide service for two years and then the satellite would de-orbit naturally.

Source: Sputnik News

Related Links
ExseedSat
Microsat News and Nanosat News at SpaceMart.com

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SpaceX launches 64 satellites at once
Washington DC (AFP) Dec 04, 2018
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