This Tiny satellite actually smaller than your earbuds

The idea for this project started when I began researching KalamSat. I was really interested in how a satellite could be made so small and lightweight, and I started looking into how it was put together.

While doing some research I found some images of KalamSat, I noticed that it used different sensors for different purposes. One was related to the IMU, for tracking motion and orientation, while another was used to measure environmental parameters. That got me thinking, what if I took that basic idea and made my own small experimental satellite?

That became the starting point for this project.

This satellite falls under the femtosatellite category. Femtosatellites are extremely small spacecraft, generally referring to satellites weighing less than 100 grams. The idea is pretty simple: see how much useful functionality can be packed into a very small amount of hardware.

There is one important thing to clarify: This was not designed to go into orbit. It is an experimental satellite meant for short-duration flight experiments. It can be carried by a drone or rocket, and during the flight and descent, it records data about its environment and movement.

At the center of the system is an ESP32-C3mini microcontroller, along with two compact sensors : one for motion-related measurements and another for environmental data. The ESP32-C3 collects the readings and saves everything to onboard memory while the satellite is flying.

After it comes back down, the satellite can simply be recovered and connected to a dashboard. The recorded data can then be retrieved and analyzed to see what happened during the flight.

Of course, getting all of this into something that weighs around 21 grams is where things get interesting. The electronics, sensors, memory, power system, wiring, and structure all have to fit together without adding unnecessary weight.

The project takes inspiration from KalamSat, but the design and implementation are my own. The main goal is to experiment with how small a useful satellite platform can become, while still being practical enough to launch, recover, and collect real data.

21 grams may not sound like much, but it is enough to build a tiny experimental satellite that can fly, record its journey, and bring the data back.