Kiska: First Slovak Satellite Great Success for Young People

Bratislava, July 4 (TASR) – Slovakia’s first satellite skCUBE is a remarkable success for the young people who took part in launching and operating it, stated President Andrej Kiska at a briefing on Tuesday after visiting the satellite navigation centre in Bratislava.

“When I met the team of young people who showed me the nanosatellite a year ago… it was more of a dream at that time. It wasn’t clear whether or not it would be launched into space and if it did whether it would be functional or not,” said Kiska, adding that now it’s a reality that the Slovak satellite has been fully functional since its launching some ten days ago.

“When I met the team of young people who showed me the nanosatellite a year ago… it was more of a dream at that time. It wasn’t clear whether or not it would be launched into space and if it did whether it would be functional or not,” said Kiska, adding that now it’s a reality that the Slovak satellite has been fully functional since its launching some ten days ago.

“It’s a great success for the young people who have contributed towards the fact that we have our first nanosatellite. I’m happy, as I heard that we’ll have a first Slovak selfie taken by the Slovak satellite – it’ll take a picture of our Slovakia from above,” added Kiska.

The skCUBE satellite was launched into space on an Indian rocket at 5.59 a.m. CET on June 23. Slovakia thus became the 78th country to construct its own satellite and have it sent into orbit. It’s now orbiting the Earth at 7.8 kilometres per second at an altitude of more than 500 kilometres. Its mission is to perform various experiments in radio communications, to send back pictures of Earth, to measure various phenomena in high orbit and the magnetosphere and to test the effects of radiation on its onboard components.