The size of a matchbox a tiny Russian satellite succeeds in its mission in space

Russia's RuVDS company announced that its nanosatellite, which it launched into space last year, has successfully performed its mission and sent large amounts of data back to Earth.

“The nanosatellite that we launched into space last year successfully performed its mission, and ground stations around the world received 630 data packets from it. During its operation, the satellite managed to cover a distance of 244 million km in space, which means it completed about 5,500 orbits in space,” said Nikita Tsaplin, CEO of the company.

He added: "In each stage of the satellite's operation, there were some risks, but the satellite is still operating in orbit to this day. At first, we did not have long-term plans for the operation of this satellite. Its development was an experimental project. The dimensions of this satellite are only (5/5/10) cm."

Tsaplin pointed out that the satellite was sent into space on June 27 last year, and was launched as an additional payload with the Russian Meteor-M satellite No. 2-3. When the satellite left the launch container, it experienced some technical problems, but they were quickly resolved and the satellite continued to work well.

RuVDS had previously indicated that it was working on a project that would allow the transportation of nanosatellites (5/5/5 cm in size) in space containers designed for launching nanosatellites, which would help in the future to launch dozens of nanosatellites into space at once using a single space rocket.