ISRO scripts history, launches 8 satellites

MUMBAI/BANGALORE: India on Monday achieved yet another space milestone when it successfully launched multiple satellites — including two made by students — from one rocket into two different orbits.

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The mission was the longest for the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV C-35) that lifted off from Sriharikota at 9.12am carrying eight satellites — three from India, including weather satellite SCATSAT-1, three from Algeria, and one each from Canada and the United States.

The 371-kg SCATSAT-1, launched within 17 minutes of takeoff, will study oceans and help in weather forecast, including cyclone detection.

“Our space scientists keep scripting history. Their innovative zeal has touched the lives of 125 crore Indians and made India proud worldwide,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

The 5.25kg PISAT made by students of Bangalore’s PES University will take pictures of earth. Pratham, a 10kg satellite developed by students of Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, will study the electron count in space which will help improve accuracy of the Global Positioning System in India, and also predict tsunamis.

The PSLV has launched 39 remote-sensing satellites for Isro, including the Mars mission of 2013-14. ‘Pratham’ – or ‘first’ in Hindi – has been designed to fit into a 30cm cube.

Conceptualised in 2008, Pratham has been worked on by students across IIT-B engineering departments and spread over seven batches. The project cost Rs1.5 crore.

It was pioneered by then students Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay and Shashank Tamaskar, under the guidance of then head of aerospace engineering professor K Sudhakar.

Bandyopadhyay, now a post-doctoral researcher at California Institute of Technology’s Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Tamaskar, a technical specialist with Advanced Dynamic Systems & Controls Group at Cummins Inc, USA - formed a small six-member team.

It was 2007 and the trend of student satellites was growing all over the world, recalls Bandyopadhyay.

“Studying in the best institute in the country, we wanted to build something that would inspire others to do great things. That was really the motivation,” Bandyopadhyay said. Pratham took eight years and seven graduating batches to finish.

In 2008, IIT-B was the first educational institute to approach Isro with the idea of launching a student satellite – evident from the name given to the mission.