PARIS, December 10 – The Nepali community-designed cubeSat, Slippers2Sat (S2S), built under the guidance of Antarikchya Pratisthan Nepal (APN), has been successfully placed into Earth’s orbit, completing the "The RIDE! After Tomorrow" mission managed by RIDE!.
This launch represents a major achievement for APN and marks a historic milestone as the first-ever launch contract between an international private entity (RIDE!) and CAS Space, a leading Chinese commercial launch service provider. RIDE! handled all end-to-end mission management, ensuring the educational project met professional engineering and operational standards.
The S2S satellite is equipped with mission-ready scientific and humanitarian payloads. These include systems for ELF/ULF detection to advance research into earthquake prediction, near-infrared imaging sensors for NDWI-based water-resource analysis to support climate resilience, and software-based digipeating to enable real-time communication for amateur-radio operators globally.
Dr. Abhas Maskey, Founder and Managing Director of APN, stated that this collaboration "sends a strong message to the international space and STEM community that... underserved Nepali children are equally capable to build and operate space systems." The mission exemplifies how an academic initiative, when professionally supported, can deliver a payload with genuine societal impact, furthering APN's goal of advancing Nepal’s space technology capabilities.
