It will be used to ensure safe movement of ships
PES University, after having launched their first satellite PISAT successfully in September 2016, is now almost ready to launch a second one—the Research Satellite (RSAT).
RSAT is a nano-size satellite, the final testing of which will be done in Hyderabad by July. It is all set to be functional by the end of this year. A group of over 25 students, mentored by experts in the field, had started working on the project last June, for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The University had initially proposed the project to the Naval Research Board and the first phase of the project was nearing the completion phase when the DRDO offered to fund the project.
Dr V Sambasiva Rao, who worked with ISRO for almost a decade and is the Director of Centre for Research in Space-Time and Technology (CRISST) and Dr VK Agarwal, one of the research directors of the university, are the two mentors of the project.
The students started working on the satellite in June, 2017. RSAT is a 3-axis stabilised agile nano-satellite. It weighs 10 kilos and measures 300 mm x 300 mm x 300 mm. It is built with deployable solar panels that generate 45 watts of solar power. This is the first satellite to be built in a state-of-the-art clean room.
“The satellite will help gather information from ships, supervise their movements and also help manage traffic flow into harbours, hence avoiding accidental collisions,” explained Neema N, who had been handling telecommand and telemetry parts of the project.
Kavya Sri, an M.Sc. student who took care of the vibration and temperature while environmental testing, said, ‘’I have been working here since our first satellite launch, and I have seen the progress and development of the students and the research centre. It’s not that we didn’t face any challenges. There were thousands of constraints and we failed several times. But, our mantra was ’you will not succeed if you don’t fail’. It kept us going.