Rifath Sharook- The Indian kid who built world’s smallest satellite for NASA

Rifath Sharook, a talented young kid hailing from a small town of Pallapatti in Karur district of Tamil Nadu has made all of us proud when his miniature satellite weighing only 64 grammes was launched by NASA’s Wallops Space center on June 21st. As a tribute to the former nuclear scientist and India’s president Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the satellite has been named ‘KalamSat’ by Rifath and his team.

Rifath’s satellite was chosen through a competition held jointly by NASA and ‘I doodle learning’. The satellite is composed of a 3-D printed reinforced carbon polymer and is also equipped with a nano Geiger Muller counter to measure radiation in space. Rifath and his team designed and built the satellite  completely from the scratch and were sponsored by the organisation ‘Space Kids India’. 18 year old young Indian scientist Rifath and his team’s satellite will fit into a 3.8 centimeter cube  and will function for 12 minutes to record various data. This is the first time an indigenous, fully 3-D printed satellite has been selected and launched by NASA.The CEO of Space Kids Dr. Shrimathy Kesan India under whose supervision the project was carried out seemed gratified, describing the launch as ‘divine intervention’ and told TOI that the satellite separated from the rocket 125 minutes after the launch and NASA would be sending back the satellite to them to decode the data.

Lost his father at a young age, Rifath Sharrok is a perfect example of how a determined kid, belonging from a humble background can achieve sky soaring success. We wish him and his team luck and success in all his future endeavours. Keep on making us proud as an Indian Rifath!