Isro next mission: Satellite made by students

Indian Space Research Organisation will launch a satellite developed entirely by students for the first time in India at Rs 55 lakh in early May. A report by Salil Mekaad.

Indian Space Research Organisation will launch a satellite developed entirely by students for the first time in India at Rs 55 lakh in early May.

HT Image

A team of students from seven engineering colleges in Bangalore and Hyderabad developed the satellite to capture high-resolution images that would be made available to students.

The satellite, STUDSAT, with a volume of 1.1 litre, will be put into the Low Earth Orbit — at 680 km from the earth — by ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

The satellite in the Pico category, weighing less than 1 kg, would ride piggyback with three other satellites on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, ISRO sources said.

STUDSAT is equipped with a camera to produce telemetry data for remote sensing applications and vegetation studies for six months.

Although satellite data are commercially sold and are out of bounds for students, STUDSAT data will be given free to students to conduct land mapping, among other things.

Jharna Majumdar, project coordinator and teacher at one of the participating colleges, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, told HT that the satellite would also have an on-board computer, communication system, power system and altitude control system.

Majumdar said the data would be analysed at a ground station, Nitte Amateur Satellite Tracking Centre, at her institute.