The Student Satellite Initiative, called Pratham, was the brainchild of two third-year students of the Aerospace Engineering Department, Shashank Tamaskar and Saptarshi Bandopadhyay. The two, now in their fourth year, are spearheading the initiative, and while Bandopadhyay is the Systems Engineer, Tamaskar heads one of the sub-systems of the project.
We are planning for a working model to be out by September end, though our tentative launch is scheduled for August 2009, says Tamaskar.
The microsatellite currently weighs approximately 7 kg, with dimensions of 23x23x23 cm. Six sub-systems come together to work on the satellite Payload, Structures and Thermals, Communication and Ground Station, On-board Computers, Attitude Determination and Control, and the Power sub-systems.
Earlier this month, the students completed the Conceptual Design Document, in which all the sub-systems and their rough designs are detailed. Once these are finalised, each of the departments will give in their specifications, with lists of the materials they need, says Tamaskar, also saying that they are working on the Preliminary Design Review which will be out in September, after which they will make models and test the components.
The project, funded by IIT-Bombay, is a venture that the students hope will continue even after the satellite is launched. Sometimes, student satellite initiatives falter because there is no one to take the lead after the students who begin it pass out, says Tamaskar, adding that the faculty is an important link of continuity in this case. The freshers can build on the knowledge we have and the newcomers will have a shorter learning curve, he says.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been encouraging and has expressed keen interest in the projects progress. We have been to ISRO twice, in February and in August, to see how things work, and to interact with them, says Tamaskar.
The initiative began in July 2007, when the two students conducted a survey on the feasibility of the project. After presenting the idea to the faculty and doing a variety of selection tests to find the students who would work most dedicatedly, the core committee was constituted in October 2007. Currently, the students working on the project are from across disciplines and interested freshers will be recruited for the project too.
Bandopadhyay says that they are trying to design the satellite in a way that will be useful for other students as well, We are trying to get universities around India to build good ground stations so that they can use our satellite to downlink data and use it.
Emphasising that the initiative is most important for its learning process, Professor K. Sudhakar of the Aerospace Engineering Department says, We hope to spur more and different projects out of this.