Satellite

What is inside

• Body (bus). A strong box wrapped in shiny foil that holds every other part.
• Solar power. Solar wings turn sunlight into electricity; batteries keep it running in the dark.
• Antennas & signals. Giant dishes catch signals from Earth, and send them back down to your TV or phone.
• Balance & pointing. Star cameras see where it is pointing; spinning wheels turn it without fuel.
• Engines & fuel. A main engine to climb to its orbit, and tiny thrusters to stay in place.
• Keeping cool. White radiators throw away the heat the electronics make.
• Brain & radio link. A computer runs everything and talks to mission control.

Stories in this thing

• Why doesn’t it fall?. The secret: it is falling — and missing!
• Different orbits. Low, high and over the poles
• Power from the Sun. Sunlight in, electricity out, heat away
• How TV comes from space. Up to the satellite and back to your home
• Staying pointed. Star cameras, spinning wheels and tiny puffs
• From rocket to orbit. Folded up, dropped off, opened out

School topics it covers

• Gravity
• Orbits

How children use it

Pull it apart with one slider, tap any part to hear what it does, follow a short story read aloud, then answer a few questions. Every thing comes with experiments to try at home and study notes linked to the NCERT chapter it supports.

More things to open

• Rocket — Ride ISRO’s LVM3 from countdown all the way to space.
• Solar system — Why it is night, why summer is hot, and how Chandrayaan reached the Moon.
• Cruise ship — Why steel floats — and the secret crew corridor inside.
• Electricity — From the power station to your switch — and what happens when you flick it.
• Smartphone — Pull it apart into seven layers — the screen, the chip, the battery and the radios that carry your voice.
• Humanoid robot — Motor muscles, camera eyes and a computer brain.