India's student satellites
In June, the historic launch that put 20 satellites in orbit also included two built by student groups
Some of the students from CoEP’s Swayam team. Photo: Aniruddha Chowdhury/Mint
At 9.26am on 22 June, the Indian Space Research Organisation, or Isro, launched its Cartosat-2 series satellite—a giant weighing more than 727kg—on board a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
The launch made history; there were 19 other satellites piggybacking on the PSLV-C34, the largest consignment that India has ever sent into space in one go. Apart from the Cartosat-2, most others were international customers, including 13 satellites from the US. But there were also two “student satellites” in the mix—and both are now in orbit.
As part of Isro’s Student Satellites programme, students from the College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP), and Sathyabama University, Chennai, had been working on two satellites—Swayam (since 2008) and SathyabamaSat (since 2009), respectively. At each stage over the years, the projects were put through rigorous Isro tests and reviews.
While SathyabamaSat’s mission is to collect data on greenhouse gases, Swayam’s mission is an exercise in innovation: The CoEP students didn’t want to build a smaller version of the satellites Isro already had in space. They wanted to try something that might actually further space research in the country. So, to keep Swayam in orbit, they tried to use the passive magnetic attitude control system (PMACS). This new technique, a first for India, uses permanent magnets and hysteresis rods instead of electrical power for stabilization in orbit. Most satellites use a significant amount of power, and if Swayam succeeds in staying in orbit for its life period of six months, it will also help Isro’s space technology research.
“You know how we used to do experiments with magnets in school: we would drop them from a string and they would align with the earth’s poles? This is similar. We have magnets inside the satellite, so that while stabilizing in orbit it will align with the earth’s poles,” explains Mugdha Bondre, a 2015 CoEP graduate who started working on Swayam’s attitude control subsystem in 2011.
At CoEP’s laboratories, we were introduced to a small metal box. No bigger than a pen stand, it sat on the table. It could easily be dismissed as a piece of scrap metal, but it is actually Swayam’s first scale model. Only 10cm high and wide, and just over 10cm long, it is a pico satellite, we were informed. Weighing less than 1kg, this is the second lightest student satellite Isro has launched. The SathyabamaSat weighs 1.5kg. The first student satellite, launched in 2009, was Anna University’s 40kg ANUSAT. Its mission was to demonstrate operations that facilitate message storing and forwarding. In the seven years since, Isro has sent up five more student satellites, including the two that were launched last month.
“It’s like a human resource development programme,” says Amareshwar Khened, project director for Small Satellite Systems at the Isro Satellite Centre. “We want to encourage capacity-building in students across India as they make these educational and technology-demonstrative satellites,” he says.
“The Isro engineers at first did not believe we were using this (PMACS) technology,” says Dhaval Waghulde, who graduated recently from CoEP’s electronics and telecommunication department. “They were really excited about it,” he says. During his four years in college, Waghulde worked on different subsystems of Swayam. One of the challenges of using a new technology was that students could not scour the Internet for information. Books too had little to offer. The team, therefore, approached experts and used its association with Isro to the fullest, performing, from scratch, simulations of how the satellite would behave.
The idea for Swayam originated back in 2008, before any of the current team members had joined the college. They were inspired by a team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, which approached CoEP to build a ground station for an IITians’ satellite. Since then, 176 CoEP students from multiple batches and various departments, along with faculty mentors, have been involved in building Swayam. They stay on campus even during holidays, to receive and record any signals that their satellite may beam back home during its four passes in a day.
“Whenever a batch of students graduated, they would hand over the knowledge to the next team via seminars and meetings. There was also detailed documentation of everything the previous batch had worked on,” says Waghulde.
It was not only the smooth knowledge transfer that helped the programme’s many students, but also their passion for the project. “Abhishek Bawiskar (CoEP, 2010) and the guys who had started this were exceptionally brilliant—they formed the culture of the team and this was very important in keeping us all passionate and attached to the project,” says Bondre, who spent most of her final year leading Swayam’s admin team.
The atmosphere in college too helped. “Students working on the project were encouraged and appreciated on campus,” she says. “There were times when the team was so involved with the satellite work that we would forget to go to our regular classes. But our professors really understood this and there were times when they would send someone to call us to class. Some of them even took separate lectures for us at times,” recalls Bondre.
What fuelled their passion and kept them inspired was the access to Isro scientists: “Meeting them was exciting,” says Waghulde. As Swayam neared its final stages, some Isro scientists and engineers stood by at Pune university to help out the team if required.
The team would sometimes work nights and stay back during vacations, to keep up with Isro’s tough tests and continuous review meets. “We were all mainly from different parts of Maharashtra,” says Bondre. “There’s Aniket Marne, for example, from Jejuri, a small village near Pune. When he first came, he was timid and wasn’t able to speak much English. But he really stood out in the team,” she says. Marne went on to do a master’s from IIT, Kharagpur at the invitation of the institution.
STUDENT SATELLITES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
A pick of some of the most interesting ones
OptiCube 3, 2015
California Polytechnic State University, USA: Orbital debris studies
LightSail-1, 2015
The Planetary Society, USA:
To demonstrate increased orbital energy with controlled solar sailingKSAT 2 (Hayato-2), 2014
Kagoshima University, Japan:
Water vapour sensor for improved prediction of rain and tornadoesiCUBE-1, 2013
Institute of Space Technology, Pakistan (Pakistan’s first CubeSat):
For experiments in the domains of imaging, micro-gravity, biology and nanotechnology, among othersXaTcobeo, 2012
University of Vigo, and National Institute for Aerospace Technology, Spain:
A new system to measure ionizing radiation and an experimental solar panel deployment systemQuakeSat, 2003
Stanford University, USA:
Earthquake detectionCUTE-I (Oscar 55), 2003
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan:
Amateur radio
Some parents were initially hesitant about their children spending too much time working on what seemed to be a pipe dream. But statistics settled the debate in favour of the project—members from the Swayam team usually got great jobs within the first week of placements, says Bondre.
Typically, Isro’s role in the Student Satellites programme is limited to supporting the colleges with the launch—providing guidance, mentors, a piggyback on the launch vehicle, and rigorous pre-launch reviews and tests. The funds, space, and manpower required to build tracking systems are provided by the college. For Swayam, the CoEP administration provided the total fund of Rs.50 lakh, full access to a state-of-the-art lab on the campus, and space to build the ground station that would be needed to communicate with the satellite once it was launched.
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22 June, 9.43am. As Swayam ejected from the PSLV—which was on its 36th flight into space—excited shouts and squeals filled the CoEP auditorium. A live screening of the Sriharikota launch had been organized, and the auditorium was packed with students, teachers, alumni, and a smattering of proud parents.
Many from the CoEP team today are excited about doing further work in space technology. The last batch that worked on Swayam, just months before its launch, is still engaged in tracking and receiving “beacons” at the station on campus. Even as they take turns to spend 4 hours in the mornings and 4 in the evenings monitoring Swayam, they have already conceptualized and received Isro’s approval for their next satellite project.
Still without a name, this project will use solar sails, a concept that has been written about as the possible future of space travel. This idea, if successful, could at some point replace the need for rocket fuel, harnessing solar energy to propel a spacecraft—just the way cloth sails on ships harness the wind. At a felicitation function for the Swayam team, Maharashtra education minister Vinod Tawde promised Rs.50 lakh, from the government’s higher and technical education department, for the new endeavour. The department spends just 0.75% of its funds on research currently, according to Tawde. They hope to gradually increase this to 10%. “Research should not stop because of want of funds,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pratham, the IIT-Bombay satellite that sparked off CoEP’s Swayam journey, is being prepared for launch sometime in the coming months, along with PISAT, another satellite from a consortium of colleges led by PES University, Bengaluru.
Dustin Silgardo contributed to this story.
This story was first published here.