Kathmandu — Nepal's Department of Information Technology confirmed this week that NepaliSat-1, the country's first domestically built satellite, is on track for launch in mid-2027 aboard a commercial rideshare mission, after final assembly and testing were completed at a laboratory in Kathmandu with support from a Japanese university programme.
The shoebox-sized cube satellite is designed to capture low-resolution imagery for glacier and flood monitoring and to test communications hardware built by a team of young Nepali engineers trained under the programme over the past three years.
Officials described the project as largely symbolic in scale but significant as a first step toward domestic space capability. "It's a single small satellite, but it proves the expertise exists here," said project lead Abhas Maskey. The government has not yet committed funding for a follow-up mission.