This message of hope will be launched by a SpaceX rocket on June 10. An unprecedented initiative, which comes exactly three years after Pope Francis’ speech, alone in Saint Peter’s Square in the midst of Covid.
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On March 27, 2020, the pope appeared alone in the world, in a deserted Saint-Pierre square, swept by the rain, to evoke the darkness, the Covid, which paralyzed everything in its path. Francis urged the world “scared and lost” to review its priorities.
525 kilometers from Earth
This message of hope, the pope now intends to deliver it from above, from space. A wish of the Vatican which has partnered with the Italian Space Agency. Contained in a 2 millimeter nano-book, it will be embarked on a 30 centimeter satellite, designed by students from the Politecnico di Torino and equipped with solar panels. It will be put into orbit 525 kilometers from Earth by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will take off on June 10 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, the Holy See announced Monday (March 27) at a press conference in Rome.
This space mission, dubbed Spei Satellites (“satellite of hope”), calls on humanity to come together at a time when the earth is living through a third World War piecemeal, as Francis keeps repeating. The cost of the operation was not specified.
The pope is also trying to restore hope through other concrete gestures: a website allows you to obtain a boarding pass in his name which will also be sent on a mission on the satellite if you commit to a good deed on Earth.
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