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| Slippers2Sat Satellite ©: Chinese Embassy in Nepal |
Slippers2Sat: Nepal's first ever success in SPACE & SATELITE
Abstract: Slippers2Sat (also reported as "Slippers to Sat" / "Slipper to Sat") is a 1U CubeSat project developed and led by Antarikchya Pratisthan Nepal in collaboration with mentors from Nepali space-education groups and partner organisations. The satellite — built with direct involvement of middle-school students from the Chepang community — was launched as part of a Chinese commercial mission carrying payloads for UAE, Egypt and Nepal in December 2025.
Background & Motivation
Slippers2Sat was conceived as an educational, social-empowerment and technology-transfer project: to give hands-on space engineering experience to children from a historically marginalised Nepali community (the Chepang), while producing a functioning nanosatellite that can collect environmental data and test small, societally relevant payloads. The project's public narrative frames the work as a literal journey "from slippers to satellite" — using an evocative slogan to connect local realities with high-technology aspirations.
Project partners & timeline
- Lead / organiser: Antarikchya Pratisthan Nepal (APN) / "S2S" local team.
- Technical mentors: Satellite engineers, local university/space institute volunteers, and members from UNISEC-Nepal and Amateur Radio / digital communication communities.
- Funding & support: Mix of NGO funding, in-kind support from partner organisations, and international collaboration for launch manifesting.
- Milestones: multi-year education & build program (Tinker Lab trainings in 7 provinces), passed Critical Design Review (CDR) in 2024; FM (flight model) integration reported during 2025 prior to launch.
Spacecraft overview & confirmed specs
Form factor: 1U CubeSat (tube-shaped/custom 1U implementation used in the project's imagery).
Mass: ~1.2 kg (reported by local press summaries of the launch briefing).
Primary payloads & capabilities (reported):
- Two high-capacity cameras capable of capturing real-time images for vegetation and water-resource monitoring.
- An experimental early-warning capability described as sensitive to pre-seismic electromagnetic signals (reported as an earthquake early-warning payload concept).
- An electromagnetic system reported to allow attitude/orbit adjustments and to "halt" motion for pointing manoeuvres (project team description — likely small electromagnetic actuators / magnetorquer-like capability adapted for the 1U platform).
Operational life: The original design targeted a multi-year mission (examples reported: 3–5 years). After launch, the team publicly noted that due to the current solar maximum (solar cycle 25 peak), the spacecraft faces increased atmospheric drag and radiation risk, lowering expected orbital lifetime estimates (team estimate reduced to ~1.5 years).
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| Chinese Rocket |
Technical architecture (what is confirmed vs. inferred)
Confirmed (from project statements)
- 1U CubeSat physical form and educational build program; flight model integration completed prior to launch.
- Payloads as described above (cameras, earthquake-EM detection experiment, electromagnetic actuation).
- Open/data-sharing intent: team stated data will be made available to licensed amateur radio operators and institutions.
Inferred / typical for 1U CubeSats (NOT explicitly confirmed by the team)
Because the team public statements and press coverage do not publish exhaustive hardware lists (typical for small team educational missions for IP/ops reasons), we infer the following subsystems are present or plausible based on common 1U practice. These are labelled as inferences:
- Command & data handling (C&DH): a small microcontroller or single-board flight computer (e.g., STM32/ARM or Raspberry-Pi-class SBC variant hardened for flight) used to manage sensors and downlink. (inference)
- Power (EPS): body-mounted solar panels with a Li-ion/Li-Po battery for eclipse operations; a power distribution board to regulate voltages to payloads and radio. (inference)
- ADCS: for a 1U, likely low-torque magnetorquers plus a MEMS gyroscope / magnetometer for coarse pointing; reaction wheels are uncommon for budget 1U educational craft but not impossible. (inference — see note below.)
- Comms: amateur radio bands (VHF/UHF), possibly using AX.25 packet protocol or small S-band transmitter for telemetry/telecommand; ground-station operations often use GNU Radio / SDR + TNC. (inference)
Important: where the team has not published a public engineering datasheet we refrain from presenting these inferences as fact; they are typical configurations for educational 1U CubeSats and useful as context for readers who wish to understand how a small student satellite is commonly built.
Mission operations & ground segment
Operations are being coordinated with Nepal Academy of Science & Technology (NAST) and amateur radio partners; the project team reported plans to establish initial contact with the satellite through NAST's ground station within hours of the launch. Telemetry, command uplink and payload downlink will use licensed amateur radio frequencies; the team committed to open data access for licensed holders and institutions.
Typical early operational phases for a satellite like Slippers2Sat include:
- Telemetry acquisition & beacon decoding on initial passes;
- Functional checkouts of EPS, C&DH and comms;
- Payload commissioning (camera tests, data collection schedules);
- Regular science/data downlink and community access via partner ground stations and amateur radio networks.
Science goals & societal impact
Slippers2Sat's cameras can contribute to small-scale, high-cadence observation of vegetation cover, seasonal changes and localized water-resource monitoring — data that is particularly useful in a country with highly variable topography such as Nepal, where high-resolution, repeat observations help local planners and researchers. The earthquake-EM experiment, if validated in flight, could feed into multi-sensor early-warning research, but such claims require rigorous validation: detecting pre-seismic electromagnetic signatures from low-earth orbit is an active research area with strong debate and noise/false-positive challenges. Any operational claims should therefore be evaluated carefully with ground truth and peer-reviewed analysis.
Education, inclusivity & legacy
Slippers2Sat stands out because of its explicit inclusion of middle-school students (grades 6–8) from the Chepang community in both design sessions and construction stages. The project has roots in earlier national tinker-lab programs and UNISEC-Nepal education efforts that aim to democratise space STEM skills across Nepal's provinces. Passing a CDR and integrating a flight model are major achievements for such an educational programme and create a pathway for future student teams to build more complex missions.
Limitations & open questions
- No public engineering datasheet: the team has not (as of publication) released a full engineering specification with all subsystems and firmware versions — a normal precaution but a limitation for technical auditability.
- Orbital lifetime uncertainty due to solar maximum effects: the team themselves gave a more conservative lifetime estimate post-launch. Precision orbital elements (TLEs) were not immediately published at the time of early press reporting; interested readers should consult official tracking services (e.g., NORAD/Space-Track) and project updates for TLEs.
- Validation of the earthquake-EM experiment requires long-term, peer-reviewed analysis and correlation with ground seismic networks before operational claims can be made. (analysis note)
How researchers & hobbyists can follow Slippers2Sat
1) Follow official project updates from Antarikchya Pratisthan Nepal; 2) monitor amateur radio bulletins and local NAST ground station feeds; 3) once public, use published TLEs to add the craft to tracking software like GPredict, SatNOGS or other trackers — and, where permitted, decode telemetry/beacons according to the project's published protocols. The project stated that data would be shared with licensed amateur radio operators and institutions.
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| Working Together for Project |
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges reporting by the Global Times and Nepali press services (Onlinekhabar, Kantipur and project websites), Antarikchya Pratisthan Nepal, and UNISEC-Nepal documentation which provided project timeline and education context for this post. See references below for direct sources.
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