India has launched what it says is the world's lightest satellite ever to be put into orbit.
Weighing only 1.26kg (2.6lb), the Kalamsat-V2 was made by 18-year-old student Rifath Sharook and his team belonging to a space education firm.
The tiny satellite, named after Abdul Kalam, was flown by a NASA sounding rocket and the lift-off was from the space agency's Wallop Island facility. Kalamsat was the only Indian payload in the mission.
The satellite that can be held in one's palm is a 3.8cm cube and its structure is fully 3D-printed with reinforced carbon-fiber polymer. It is equipped with a nano Geiger Muller counter which will measure radiation in space.
It will help ham radio operators and "inspire schoolchildren to become the scientists and engineers of the future", India's space agency says.
Mission director Srimathy Kesan told Times of India that the total flight time of the rocket was 240 minutes. The satellite, assembled at her T.Nagar residence in Chennai, separated from the rocket after spending 125 minutes in the space's micro-gravity environment. "Kalamsat fell into the sea. It will be recovered and NASA will be sending it back to us for decoding the data," she said.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched the satellite from its Sriharikota space centre.