While Florida has played a prominent role in the race to space, Sri Lanka is only just beginning to explore beyond the atmosphere.
Ever since the beginning of the Space Age, Florida has been a key location due to the Launch Complex at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral. Residents and visitors alike are often treated to the spectacle of unmanned and manned rockets escaping the Earth’s gravity and heading for the vacuum of space. While spectators may enjoy the spectacular show, there is always a practical side to a nation’s expeditions to space. Many rocket payloads include communications, weather, and even spy satellites, in addition to supplies for the International Space Station and even human explorers and scientists. The information provided is vital to a country’s scientific and intellectual development.
Therefore, it is unsurprising that even a small nation like Sri Lanka would look to space. After all, one of its most famous residents, Arthur C. Clarke, wrote extensive science fiction novels depicting spaceflight. However, due to budgetary and infrastructure constraints, many of Sri Lanka’s achievements related to space have come in partnership with other nations or through private enterprises.
In 2012, Sri Lanka sent its first communications satellite into space. The satellite, SupremeSAT-I, was launched by SupremeSAT (Pvt) Ltd. from China in partnership with the Chinese state-owned technology firm China Great Wall Industry Corporation. In fact, the satellite itself was built by a French company. Although nominally a private effort, alleged business ties between the Sri Lankan president’s family and SupremeSAT made such claims murky.
In 2019, Sri Lanka succeeded in launching a research cube satellite, a nano-satellite created and launched through partnership with Japan. The satellite, the Raavena-1, was actually launched from a site in the U.S. state of Virginia through payload space secured by JAXA, Japan’s spaceflight agency. It was sent to the International Space Station and launched into space from the Japanese module Kibo.
In 2023, Jithran Ekanayake, a Sri Lankan student at the University of Florida, became the first Sri Lankan to be part of a team to send an experiment to the International Space Station. As part of a collaboration with several university teams and DARPA, the experiment was intended to explore the viability of biomanufacturing in space. The payload was actually launched through SpaceX from the Cape Canaveral launch site.
While Sri Lanka does not currently have the necessary equipment to conduct space exploration on its own, through its partnerships it is taking steps to join the space race and encourage development in the space technologies sector within the island.