Ajit Karn
Vatican City: The Vatican announced Monday that a message of faith and hope first conveyed by Pope Francis in the midst of the 2020 coronavirus quarantine will be sent into space.
On June 10, a “nanobook” measuring less than two millimeters wide containing the pontiff’s solitary prayer in a deserted St. Peter’s Square will be launched into orbit.
It will orbit the Earth at an altitude of approximately 525 kilometers on a purpose-built satellite launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Spei Satelles (Satellites of Hope in Latin) is a mission coordinated by the Italian Space Agency in collaboration with various Italian institutions. Its cost and funding are unknown.
Agency president Giorgio Saccoccia stated that the Vatican had requested “a solution that would allow the Holy Father’s words of hope to cross the earth’s borders and reach as many women and men on our troubled planet as possible from space.”
On March 27, 2020, the pontiff exhorted his disciples to have faith in the face of a terrifying new virus.
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In 2017, he held a video conference with astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), during which he inquired about “man’s place in the universe.”
His predecessor Benedict XVI also called the ISS six years prior.
