Nellore: One of the nano-satellites launched on Wednesday is the Sathyabamasat, developed by students from the Chennai-based Sathyabama University.
They were guided by experts from Isro. The primary objective of Sathyabamasat is pollution monitoring. A ground station has also been established at the University to receive and analyse signals. The satellite’s mission time is six months.
According to Dr Sheela Rani, the vice-chancellor of Sathyabama University, the nano-satellite weighs just two kilos and five different batches of students worked on it.
“The students will operate it themselves from the ground station. The project cost about Rs 1.5-2 crore. The next ‘student satellite’ is the SWAYAM satellite (it weighs a kilo) sent from College of Engineering, Pune. It will provide point-to-point messaging services for the HAM radio community.
“The cube shaped satellite, which is smallest in the passenger list of 20, weighs less than 1,000 grams,” said Dr P.B. Ahuja, director of COEP. In Pune, around 800 students, alumni and faculty gathered at the 162-year-old premier institute’s auditorium to witness the ‘live’ streaming of the launch.
“The team has devised an ingenious passive stabilisation system which employs a pair of hysteresis rods and a magnet to stabilise the satellite, thus eliminating the need to use bulky and power hungry magnetorquers,” Ahu-ja said, adding that the feature was appreciated by Isro.
