Tech Talk: Mission possible – Gulf Digital News

Tech Talk: Mission possible – Gulf Digital News

Bahrain’s first-ever satellite, which may revolutionise the global understanding of lightning storms, is set to be launched from the International Space Station (ISS) later this month.

And the kingdom’s space team could not be more excited!

For the seven-person team at the National Space Science Agency (NSSA), the successful orbit of Light-1 will be the fruition of more than three years of diligent efforts, energy and collaboration with international space science agencies. 

“Our team has been working on the project since March 2019, which is when we received the initial mission, definition and concept,” NSSA engineering specialist Aysha Alharam told GulfWeekly.

“We were supposed to launch by mid-2021, but due to the Covid-19 situation, we postponed it.

“During 2019, we designed the mission concept and then did a critical design review in 2020. It was during the second half of 2020 that we started building the satellite.”

After construction, the second half of 2021 was spent conducting final environmental and safety reviews.

The nanosatellite Light-1 was launched aboard the SpaceX Falcon-9 CRS-24 on December 21, 2021, from the Nasa Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US and docked at the ISS the next day. 

Now that it’s on board the ISS, the astronauts at the