Sathyabama university uplinks with ISRO

Chennai: ISRO that has been surprising even developed nations and achieving great feats with its glamorous projects of Mangalyaan and Chandrayaan, does not fail to link up students with space technology - Sathyabhamasat (named after Sathyabhama University that developed the satellite) is one of the two students satellites that will be launched along with 20 other satellites by PSLV C34 this month. The project, according to Sathyabhama University Vice-Chancellor and

Project Manager B Sheela Rani, was the outcome of a memorandum of understanding signed with ISRO and the space agency suggested that the university fabricate a satellite.

It took several brainy heads and even more pairs of hands to design the satellite and assemble it in the 'clean room' of the university.

Work on the satellite, weighing 1.89 kg, began with the 2010 batch of students and was handed down year after year to the following batches, till it was completed this year. Eight departments were involved in the project that was funded by the university.

Nihal Reddy, electronic power supply in-charge for the satellite and third-year EEE student, said the many reviews conducted by ISRO was a learning experience. "They used to ask us questions and everytime we found the answers, there were more questions shot at us by the ISRO scientists. They taught us a lot and are the actual backbone of the project," he says with awe.

He is filled with wonder that though the ISRO officials have achieved great heights, 'they were humble enough to come down to our level and explain things'. They solved most of the technical glitches that we faced and did not know how to get around them, he said, shaking his head.

Hari Krishnan, risk analyst for the project and third-year EEE student, said only now we have understood the difficulty in producing something with zero error. "It taught us the importance of team work. We may all belong to different departments in college but everyone's input was needed to complete the project," he pointed out.

EEE department Assistant Professor and team in-charge, K Vasanth, said there are five solar panels (four side panels and one bottom panel) to fuel the satellite. "The solar panels are parallel instead of being in series, to ensure continuous supply of power. That was the easy part. The biggest hurdle was the exams. Students had to toggle between academics and the project and I think they did well," Vasanth smiled with satisfaction.

"We have put in everything we have got and all we can do now is hope that the satellite behaves as expected. We have demonstarted the working of the satellite here in space conditions and the results were satisfactory," said Sheela.

The university has also established a ground station to monitor the health parameters of the satellite and acquire payload data. The base station will send and receive the data from the satellite through the two antennas. The data collected will be used by ISRO, Indian Meteorological Department and Sathyabhama University.

Even in future, said the Vice-Chancellor, we will definitely try to do more satellite projects - it is up to the management and ISRO to decide when that will happen, Sheela said.

THE SAT

The objective of the satellite is to monitor the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and obtain the pollution model for India through the data collected. The spectrometer, which is the payload, operates in the near infrared band 900nm to 1,700nm and features a surface resolution of approximately 1.5 km deployed in low earth orbit.

The 1.89 kg satellite will be the second to be placed in orbit only after the Cartosat satellite of ISRO. For the expected life span of six months it will be a satellite, and after that it can be used as a simple transponder for amateur radio communication.

CHANGING HANDS

The project, which began in 2010, has seen almost five batches of students handle it. The first batch had students from the final year as well as the pre-final year. Once the final year students pass out, new students will be added to the team for continuity, and the already existing members will educate them on the project. That is how the information was carried from batch to batch.

CHOICE SELECTION

Vice-Chancellor Sheela Rani said the students were chosen based on merit and their interest and knowledge of the subject - academics was not a base factor.

"There is a past student who still has arrears but his work was the most appreciated by the scientists," she said.