Nanosatellite developed by B'luru students to be launched tomorrow

The PES Imaging Satellite, or PISAT, designed and developed by students from Bengaluru, will be launched from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, on Monday. The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) launch vehicle, PSLV c-35, will carry the PISAT, a 5-kg nanosatellite with an imaging camera to capture the earth imagery of 185 km x 135 km area with about 90m per pixel resolution. One of the mentors of the project, Dr V Sambasiva Rao, professor of electronics and communications engineering at PES University and a former scientist at Isro, said that the satellite would be launched at 9.17 am. The PISAT will eject into the 670-km orbit at 11.32 am. The first visibility of the satellite will be at 9.43 am from the PES ground station at PES University while it will take its first imagery of the earth on September 27 at 9.54 am, he added.

Jeevan V, a seventh-semester student of telecommunication engineering at PES University, has been involved in the PISAT project for the last one-and-a-half years. Testing and fine-tuning the RF (radio frequency) communication of the satellite were his main responsibilities. “Receiving the first signal from the satellite after it is launched in orbit will be like a baby’s first cry for me,” he said. “All of us in the team are eager to hear it. I am nervous but overall it was an amazing experience.”

Developed and designed by around 250 students from five institutions, including PES University, the mission is a culmination of over four years of hard labour. The total project cost is Rs 1.25 crore with the participating institutions — SKR Engineering College, VEL Tech University, both in Chennai, Sona College of Technology, Salem, and Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre, Thrissur — contributing Rs 20 lakh each. “Most parts were ordered online and procured directly while critical and expensive components such as solar cells and battery were provided by Isro,” Prof Rao said.

Along with the PISAT, another student satellite, Pratham, developed by IIT-Bombay, is also being launched. The  PSLV c-35 will carry a total of eight satellites to be launched into the earth’s orbit. The main satellite to be launched is Isro’s SCATSAT-1 and others include the Pathfinder-1 of the US, NLS-19 of Canada, ALSAT-1B, ALSAT-2B and ALSAT-1N of Algeria.