Engineering students design satellite, to be launched in April

Updated on: Saturday, January 08, 2011

A group of 54 engineering students from the city have designed a nano satellite to monitor greenhouse gases (GHG) that the Indian space agency is planning to launch in April.

Since 2008, the students from SRM University have been working on the project 'SRMSAT'. The satellite weighing just 10 kg is being developed under the guidance of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) at a cost of Rs.1 crore.

With climate change becoming a cause of serious global concern, the satellite will monitor GHG - mainly carbon dioxide - in the atmosphere. A grating spectrometer is employed for monitoring earth-based sources and sinks of anthropogenic and natural sources of GHG.

"The satellite is scheduled for launch in April this year with ISRO's Megatropics G satellite. We have signed a memorandum of understanding with the national space agency for the project," M. Loganathan, former ISRO scientist who is heading the team, told on the sidelines of the ongoing Indian Science Congress at the SRM University campus here.

According to Loganathan, the students are very passionate about the project and would work on it after their classes.

Explaining the initial problems they faced, Sarwesh Narayaan, a mechanical engineering student, told the sources, "It was difficult to communicate technically as we all come from different disciplines of engineering, but we did overcome it as each of us had to understand the concepts of all the other disciplines before designing the project."

"All of us are multi-tasking, and an electrical engineer student in the group is also conversant with the concepts of mechanical, aerospace, electrical communication and information engineering. We have been solving each others' problem," Guruditya Singh, a final year student, told.

It's the team spirit that keeps this group of 51 men and 3 women students going.

"Whenever we get some time, maybe over lunch or dinner or during weekends, our point of discussion is only SRMSAT. Each one of us enjoy talking about it and our sessions go on for hours. There is nobody junior or senior but a team, and our mantra is value for thought. A first year student can also give a good piece of advice to the group," said Anushree Mahapatra, a student of electronic and information engineering.

In 2010, ISRO launched Studsat--a tiny satellite built by 35 students from four engineering colleges in Bangalore and three in Hyderabad -- which can take pictures of the earth from space, helping in weather forecasting.

Other institutes have got in the act as well. A 3.5-kg satellite 'Pradhan' is being built by students of IIT-Mumbai. Students of Sathyabhama University, Chennai, are also working on a nano satellite.

In Vellore Institute of Technology University (VITU), Vellore, the students have designed the TubeSat, which is a pico-satellite, weighing less than 1 kg.

Engineering students design satellite, to be launched in April

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