a message from the Pope will be sent to a satellite 525 kilometers from Earth

The Vatican looks to heaven. A message from Pope Francis is due to fly off into space on Monday, June 12, aboard an Italian mini-satellite, on board a SpaceX rocket. It is the culmination of a project born in 2020, at the time of the Covid pandemic.

On March 27, 2020, at the end of the day and in full confinement, Pope Francis went up to Saint Peter’s Square in Rome. He is alone, in the rain, on the forecourt of the basilica and addresses Catholics all over the world. In this fifteen-minute speech, for “give hope” explains the pope, as the world has entered a moment of uncertainty and fear linked to the coronavirus.

A “Satellite of Hope”

It is this message, which became a book in 2021, that the Holy See had engraved, as well as the images of this intervention, on a silicon plate of a few millimeters on board a miniature satellite of 3 kilos called Spei Satelles. , which can be translated as “Satellite of Hope”.

In addition to the nanobook, the machine, made by the Polytechnic School of Turin, carries some scientific measuring instruments, but also a communication system which, according to its promoters, will allow everyone, via radio waves, to pick up audio messages. … and papal at an altitude of 525 km.

However, this is not the first time that the Pope has spoken in space: in October 2017, Francis spoke live by videoconference with astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), an initiative already led by his predecessor Benedict XVI.