With the start of New year 2019, there is good news for all the tech buffs. Nepal is going to launch its own satellite soon by Baishak 2076. The Kyutech, Japan (Kyushu Institute of Technology) has assisted in the launch of Nepal’s own Satellite.
According to the Technology department head at NAST Mr. Rabindra Dhakal, Nepal Government has provided Rs 18 million to launch the satellite. Two Nepali engineers at Kyutech will lead the satellite launch. One of them Mr. Abhash Maskey is doing Ph.D. in “Space technology Engineering” and another Mr. HareRam Shrestha is doing Masters in Electrical Engineering at the University. As known, Kyutech is the World’s No. 1 academic operator of Small Satellites.
The name of the Nepali Satellite has created some confusion here. Kantipur reports the name of the Satellite to be NepSat-1 whereas Nagarik writes it to be Birds-3. We will update once the actual name is known.
Till now, Nepal has been using satellite link of other countries for communication and other purposes, paying huge sums of money. With the launch of own satellite, Nepal could overcome the huge cost and National security compromise.
The Satellite will be mainly used for taking photographs of the country on daily basis and disseminate information about its mountains, hills, Terai, Glaciers, roads as well as floods. Source
Till now, the development of satellite has already been completed. Engineering module completed in August, while Environment test succeeded in December. So, the Satellite is ready to launch in Baishak, 2076 (Mid May 2019). Now, they are working to make a Ground Station, required for the communication to Satellite. Once everything is in place, NAST scientists and MoCIT officials will visit Japan in Baishak for the launch.
Source: https://www.nepalitelecom.com/2019/01/nepal-launching-satellite-baishak.html