Learn from the best: Now, IIT-Bombay will teach students to build satellites

Fifteen months after launching Pratham – a 10kg microsatellite – IIT-B will make the process of building satellites public on Wednesday

Updated on: Feb 28, 2018, 11:43:58 IST

Hindustan Times | By Snehal Fernandes, Mumbai

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University and college students can learn how to design and build satellites from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B).

The IIT-B student satellite team received many calls and emails from other student satellite projects asking for guidance and technical help in building the satellite. (HT FILE)

Around 15 months after the institute launched Pratham – a 10kg microsatellite – the student satellite team will make the process of building satellites public on Wednesday, which is earmarked as National Science Day.

The student satellite team at IIT-B will unveil Satellite 101 Wiki via https://www.aero.iitb.ac.in/satelliteWiki, which is a systematic and organised compilation of the knowledge and experience gained by the team while working on Pratham.

Pratham, the microsatellite, was launched on board Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C35 in September 2016, eight years after it was conceived.

READ: ‘IIT-Bombay’s Pratham microsatellite did not achieve its mission goal’

The idea of Satellite 101 Wiki was mooted following Pratham’s launch when the IIT-B student satellite team received many calls and emails from other student satellite projects asking for guidance and technical help in building the satellite.

“It is not about building a satellite like Pratham. It can be about any kind of satellite,” said Yash Sanghvi, who was part of the Pratham team, and currently project manager of the next satellite, Advitiy. “Though Advitiy and other satellites may not be like Pratham, they can make use of the principles that went into building it,” he said.

Satellite 101 wiki covers various aspects that go into building a satellite – from how to build a team and reaching a consensus on a mission statement to understanding satellite sub-systems and how to obtain the required infrastructure.

“This Wiki gave me an opportunity to hone my creative side while strengthening my own technical concepts. And it always feels nice to share your knowledge,” said Sukanya Kudva, member of the Attitude Determination and Control Subsystem of Advitiy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Snehal Fernandes
Snehal Fernandes is senior associate editor, who joined HT in 2006. She heads the Mumbai edition’s city reporting team that writes on civic and urban governance, transport and infrastructure, health, and education. She is also the National Science Editor. With a career spanning more than two decades, her expertise lies in writing on science and technology, space, environment, sustainable development, climate change, and nuclear energy. Her work consistently breaks down, and without oversimplyfying, science and research developments into an easy read for a broad audience. In 2009, she was among the very first journalist to report on the opposition to the Jaitapur nuclear power plant in Ratnagiri (Konkan) following the Indo- US civil nuclear agreement and consistently followed it with multiple stories from ground zero; wrote about the introduction and subsequent halt to the cultivation of genetically modified (BT) brinjal, and has interviewed Nobel laureates and award winning scientists. In 2012, she was awarded ‘The Press Club Award for Excellence in Journalism’ (Political category) for reports on the mining scam in Goa. Prior to HT, she wrote on education and transport at the Indian Express. She graduated in sociology from St Xavier's College, and firmly believes in the phrase by Karl Marx that ‘Religion is the opium of the people’. When she is not keeping a tab on the going-ons in Mumbai and the scientific world, you'll find her reading world news, or watching crime/espionage series or political dramas. She can repeatedly watch Kill Bill with the same interest as Planet of the Apes and Spiderman. For someone who was not remotely interested in dogs or cats, she loves every bit of her time with her two-year-old Indie cat Bunny.Read More