Dr. Srimathy Kesan appointed as mission director for country's first space mission

The Institute for Global Success (IGS) has appointed Indian expert, Dr. Srimathy Kesan as the mission director for its first space mission.

Dr. Srimathy Kesan, who has led many successful space missions, will play a key role in nurturing Maldivian students from planning to successful implementation of a space mission, according to a media release by IGS. The world’s smallest satellite was launched through NASA in 2017 under Dr. Srimathy’s leadership, and subsequent missions include KalamSat V2, the world’s lightest student satellite launched in 2019 and Satish Dhawan Satellite, a 3U Satellite launched through ISRO last month. She also has led a record number of balloon sat missions in India.

IGS is conducting its space mission together with technical expertise from with KSF space foundation UK. Local students will be trained for the country’s first space mission under the agreement signed between IGS and KSF space foundation last October. 12 students from the Maldives will complete the world's first Nano Satellite Engineering Professional certification with grant aid from KSF while the training programmes will be conducted by an expert team from the United States.