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It’s Indeed Rocket Science!
published on : 12-09-2014
Category : All India Council for Technical Education
Indian space research got its long overdue credit after a recent successful mission to Mars. The shoestring budget on which India accomplished its Mangalyaan mission left countries the world over in awe. It showed the calibre of Indian scientists in indigenisation of technology and optimum utilisation of resources. In the realm of space technology, students of Indian Universities are not far behind. Students from various colleges across India have been part of student satellite initiatives, and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has so far successfully put four student satellites in orbit, with many more in the pipeline. ANUSAT, short for Anna University satellite, which was designed by the students and faculty of Anna University, was the first satellite built by an Indian University under the guidance of ISRO. It was launched in 2009. It was built by the students and faculty of College of Engineering, Guindy, and Madras Institute of Technology, Chromepet, both of which come under Anna University. It demonstrated the technologies related to ‘store and forward’ operations. Store and forward is a telecommunications technique in which information is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time to the final destination or to another intermediate station. The main objective of ANUSAT was to enable students to gain experience in the design, building and testing of a microsatellite. ANUSAT was partially successful in achieving the store and forward operations. Indian space research got its long overdue credit after a recent successful mission to Mars. The shoestring budget on which India accomplished its Mangalyaan mission left countries the world over in awe. It showed the calibre of Indian scientists in indigenisation of technology and optimum utilisation of resources. In the realm of space technology, students of Indian Universities are not far behind. Students from various colleges across India have been part of student satellite initiatives, and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has so far successfully put four student satellites in orbit, with many more in the pipeline. ANUSAT, short for Anna University satellite, which was designed by the students and faculty of Anna University, was the first satellite built by an Indian University under the guidance of ISRO. It was launched in 2009. It was built by the students and faculty of College of Engineering, Guindy, and Madras Institute of Technology, Chromepet, both of which come under Anna University. It demonstrated the technologies related to ‘store and forward’ operations. Store and forward is a telecommunications technique in which information is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time to the final destination or to another intermediate station. The main objective of ANUSAT was to enable students to gain experience in the design, building and testing of a microsatellite. ANUSAT was partially successful in achieving the store and forward operations. Students who worked on this project are now doing research in some of the top universities of the world. “The actual people who contribute to space research are experts who have spent 10-15 years specialising in their own fields, be it thermal or mechanical,” he continues, adding that one must keep in mind that student satellites involve budding engineers from various disciplines juggling studies and initiatives like these, unlike the ISRO’s skilled and specialised workforce. STUDSAT-1, the country’s first pico satellite was launched in 2010. Engineering students from a consortium of seven colleges, four from Bangalore and three from Hyderabad, with Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology (NMIT), Bangalore, taking the lead, designed the satellite. Chetan Dixit, team lead of the project manmanagement group of STUDSAT-1, says that a speech by DVA Raghava Murthy, former Project Director of Small Satellites Projects,ISRO, at the 2007 International Astronautical Congress, Hyderabad,about space research and development, floored the students, and this inspired the student satellite.“NMIT took the lead and apart from the objective of encouraging research in miniaturised satellites, we intended to capture images of the earth with a resolution of 90 metres,” says Chetan, who was an undergraduate Electronics and Communications Engineering student at NMIT during the project. “For the ground station to be able to receive the images, the satellite should dump the captured images in that part of the earth where we can receive it, which unfortunately did not happen,” he adds. STUDSAT-1 weighed just around 850g. The team entered the LimcaBook of Records in 2011 for having built the smallest satellite ever made by students.
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