Sri Lanka’s third nanosatellite, BIRDS-X DRAGONFLY, is scheduled to be launched on September 19 at 2.15 pm Sri Lankan time.
The satellite was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on August 24 by NASA’s SPX33 rocket mission. It is scheduled to be launched from the International Space Station.
The project has received technical contributions from Sri Lankan engineers. It was supported by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Agency for Digital Radio Communications (ARDC) and the Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan.
Sri Lanka has not incurred any capital expenditure for the BIRDS-X DRAGONFLY project. The project, funded by the Arthur C. It was initiated by Engineer (Prof.) Sanath Panawana, former Director General of the Clark Institute and founder of the Sri Lanka Space Technology Development Program.
Following the launch of Sri Lanka’s first nanosatellite, Ravana-1, in 2019 and the KITSUNE satellite, developed under an international collaboration project, in 2022, this marks another significant step forward in Sri Lanka’s space technology journey.
The Sri Lankan engineering team for this project included Engineer Kamani Ediriweera, Engineer Kavindra Jayawardena, Engineer Tharindu Dayaratne, Engineer Kavindra Sampath, Engineer Uditha Gayan, and Research Scientist Thilina Wijebandara.