Chennai: Four students from department of aerospace engineering in Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science near Chennai have designed world’s lightest satellite which weighs only 33.39 grams which will be put into space in August from Colorado Space Centre in the US.
Jaihind-1S, the experimental satellite, could also be the cheapest satellite as it was built at the meagre budget of Rs 15,000. The students were selected through “Cubes in Space” competition conducted by Colorado Space Grant Consortium, Nasa and idoodle-learning in January.
The satellite which is made by 3D printed PLA Nylon is designed to conduct three experiments. “The main aim of the satellite is to check the working of nylon in microgravity. We also intend to study extreme weather events like cloudbursts and try to understand the trajectory of the rocket,” said K.J. Harikrishnan team leader for the project. The other members of the team include P. Amarnath, T. Giri Prasad and G.Sudhi.
The students assembled the satellite in less than a month. “We reduced the cost of the satellite by reducing the weight. But, the components were not easily available and it took three weeks to get the materials. Then, we assembled the satellites in just two weeks,” he said.
“We wanted to build rockets, but it is very costly and then we heard about the cube satellite competition,” he added. The satellite can also gather details about the temperature, pressure, altitude, UV ray intensity, rolling movement of the satellite cum rocket or balloon (depending on which it will be launched).
“The sensors will be connected to an onboard microcontroller that has been programmed to retrieve data from the modules and stores it in a micro SD card. Thus we can find whether nylon could be used in space technology,” says Harikrishnan.
The satellite will work for 15 to 20 hours. It will travel up to 65 km to 70 km high in the atmosphere. In the same competition last year, another student Rifath Sharook built a satellite weighing 64 grams. While reducing the weight of the satellite, the students also improved the endurance of the satellite and increased the number of readings to 20.
Throughout the world, thousands of proposals for space experiments were received and shortlisted for the competition. Out of which 100 experiments got chosen to be sent to space. G.Dineshkumar from the School of Aerospace Engineering was the faculty advisor for the students.
