Reaching New Heights

A review of satellites launched by students in India

S Yashwanth |1SJ16AE049
Introduction:
A satellite is anything that orbits a body. The moon is a natural
satellite of the earth. The International Space Station is a man-made
satellite. Each satellite has its own purpose or mission, for which it
carries a certain payload. Every other system on the satellite cooling,
power, data transmission, etc. centers around this payload.

As a satellite orbits a body, in this case and the rest of this document
Earth, it follows a certain path, defined by points above the earths
surface. We are generally concerned with two, the apogee or the
highest point the satellite reaches above the earths surface and the
perigee or the lowest point it reaches above the earths surface. These
two points define the shape of the orbit of the satellite, and also its
time period, that is, the time take for a satellite to complete one full
orbit.

The satellite also orbits with a certain angle, inclined with the
equatorial plane of earth, called the satellites inclination. This number
gives us an idea at what position the satellite is above or below the
equator.

There are also different types of orbits depending on their height from
sea level. LEO or Low Earth Orbit is generally up to 2000 km above sea
level, MEO or Medium Earth Orbit ranges from 2000 km to 35786 km,
Geosynchronous and Geostationary orbits are at a distance of 42164
km, and these satellites have a period of 24 hours, the time taken by
earth to complete one revolution. These both come under High Earth
Orbits or HEOs.

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Many satellites have stabilization systems to keep them in a certain
position to allow the payload to work. This position is called its
attitude.

The attitude of a satellite is determined by assuming a point in space.

Most often, this point is the sun. Sometimes, satellites use reaction
wheels. These are rotating wheels, which are oriented in the three co-
ordinate axes. Varying the speed of one of the wheels results in the
satellite changing its attitude.

Magnetorquers are another way of attitude control. These use the

earths magnetic field to apply a torque to rotate the satellite.

For proper and accurate attitude control, more than one type of system
is generally used.

The Idea
The concept that students in universities could build a satellite is
because of the reduction of the costs of the components. However,
building a working satellite is no mean feat. Several things could go
wrong. A low-cost solution is to build a pico-satellite (which weighs
less than 5 kilograms) or a nano-satellite (which weighs less than 10
kilograms), and that is exactly what students and faculty of various
colleges and universities have done.

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ANUSAT ANna University SATellite:
ANUSAT or Anna University Satellite was the first satellite to be built
by an Indian university. It was a microsatellite, weighing about 40
kilograms. It was built under the guidance of ISRO and was developed
and assembled at Madras Institute of Technology, under AU. It was
launched on PSLV-C12 along with RISAT-2, a radar imaging satellite
developed by ISRO, on 20th April 2009, 6:45 am Indian Time. Students
and faculty of Madras Institute of Technology and College of
Engineering, Guindy, were involved in the design of the satellite. The
project director was Dr. PV Ramakrishna. The satellite is a CubeSat,
i.e., it is a cube whose dimensions are in multiples of 10mm, with a
dimension of 600mm. It is operated by the MIT Campus, Chennai. The
payload included amateur radio data store and forwarding, and certain
other technological demonstration systems.

It was integrated, assembled and tested at the MIT Chromepet clean

room or MICSAT.

Its orbital parameters are as follows:

Type of Orbit Low Earth

Perigee 402 km
Apogee 552 km
Period 94.2 minutes
Inclination 41.2 degrees

The satellite is spin stabilized, and its axis is pointed normal to the
sun.

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From top left: RISAT-2, the PSLV rocket, and ANUSAT

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STUDSAT STUDent SATellite:
The STUDSAT or Student Satellite was the first Indian picosatellite in
space, built by students and faculty from a consortium of seven
engineering colleges in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It weighed
about 950 grams and has outer dimensions of 10 cm x 10 cm x 13.5 cm.
The idea came from 4 students of different colleges from Bangalore
and Hyderabad who attended the International Astronautical Congress
in Hyderabad in 2007. They met with then project director of Small
Satellites, ISRO. The team of 4 gradually expanded to 45 while they
approached the colleges for funding, who in turn contacted ISRO for
the project reviews. The seven colleges, namely Nitte Meenakshi
Institute of Technology, Bangalore, MS Ramaiah Institute of
Technology, Bangalore, Rashtreeya Vidyalaya College of Engineering,
Bangalore, BMS Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Chaitanya
Bharathi Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, Institute of Aeronautical
Engineering, Hyderabad, Vignan Institute of Technology, Hyderabad,
and RNS Institute of Technology, Bangalore, signed a Memorandum of
Understanding, both internally and with ISRO. The team is led by Dr.
Jharna Majumdar, HOD Computer Science, Nitte Meenakshi Institute
of Technology.

The payload of the mission was a CMOS remote sensing camera that
took pictures of the earths surface of about 90-meter resolution, the
best in the world ever obtained by a picosatellite. A ground station has
been set up in NMIT called NASTRAC or Nitte Amateur Satellite
Tracking Center, inaugurated by Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, the current
chairman of ISRO.

The mission's objective was for students to have a hands-on experience

with the design, fabrication and realization of a space mission at a
minimum cost. Experimental in nature, the mission life was stated to
be six months.

The satellite uses three spin reaction wheels for stabilization

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The orbital parameters of the satellite are:

Type of Orbit LEO

Perigee
Apogee 630 km
Period
Inclination 98 degrees

The satellite was launched on the PSLV C-15, as a secondary payload to

CARTOSAT-2B, another remote sensing satellite, on 12 July 2010, 11.07
am, from Satish Dhawan launch pad one.

The CARTOSAT 2B

STUDSAT - 1

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SRMSat SRM University SATellite:
This nanosatellite was built by students of Sri Ramaswamy Memorial
University, Chennai. It was built as a technology demonstration and
earth obsering satellite. The payload is an Argus spectrometer to
measure the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The main
aim was to develop a nanosatellite platform for future missions. It
weighs 10.4 kilograms, and measures 28 centimetres (11 in) in length by
28 centimetres (11 in) in height and width. It was laucnhed on a PSLV
C-18 rocket along with Megha-Tropiques, VesselSate-1 and Jugnu,
another picosatellite developed by IIT Kanpur, on 12th October 2011.
SRMSAT[6] is controlled by a 28.8 MHz Atmel microcontroller. Atmel
microcontrollers are alsu used in Arduino boards. Communication is
via Ultra high frequency (UHF), with a downlink at 437.5 MHz
providing a data rate of 2.4 kbit/s and an uplink at 145.9 MHz with a 1
kbit/s data rate. Attitude control is via solar cell management system
(SCDM), an on-board magnetometer and Global Positioning System
(GPS) receiver that provide data for magnetorquer coils which interact
with the Earth's magnetosphere to change the satellite's orientation.

The orbital parameters of the satellite are as follows:

Type of Orbit LEO

Perigee 850 km
Apogee 867 km
Inclination 19.9 degrees
Period 102 minutes

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SRMSat being loaded onto PSLV C -18

SRMSat Logo

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Jugnu The Firefly:
This technological demonstration nanosatellite was built and operated
by the Indian Institute of Kanpur. Built under the guidance of Dr. NS
Vyas, Jugnu was used to provide data on agriculture and disaster
monitoring. It was launched on 12 October 2011 into low Earth orbit by
a PSLV-CA C18. It is a 3 kilogram satellite, which measure 34 cm in
length 10 cm in height and width.

The payload was differentiated into four main subsystems. For

imaging, the satellite used a near IR camera, an On-Board Computer
(OBC), and external storage. The camera captures a 640X480 px image
which is then transferred to an external memory by the OBC. The
image is then processed (if required) and transmitted to the ground
stationThe GPS payload in the satellite helped in synchronizing the
time of OBC from the time data retrieved from the GPS module. The
Orbital Parameters from the GPS is fed into the ADCS system which
assists in satellite positioning from time to time. The Attitude
Determination and Control System (ADCS) orients the satellite in a
manner such that maximum solar energy is incident on its solar
panels. The Thermal Control Subsystem(TCS) maintains the
temperature within the specified limit of 298K to 323K. It ensures that
no large thermal gradients and no excessive thermal stress across the
structures occur.

Other subsystems included an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and

an Ejection subsystem. The Ejection subsystem is used to separate the
rocket and the satellite and the IMU measured the mechanical forces
on the satellite to test the performance of the MEMS (MicroElectronic
Mecahnical Sensor) based sensors.

The satellite is spin stabilised

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The orbital parameters of the satellite:

Type of Orbit LEO

Perigee 860 km
Apogee 860 km
Inclination 19.96 degrees
Period 102 minutes

The Firefly, without its protective outer cover

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SATHYABAMASAT SATHYABAMA university
SATellite:
SathyabamaSat is a microsatellite developed by students and faculty of
Sathyabama University, Chennai to collect data on greenhouse gases
(Water vapor, Carbon monoxide, Carbon dioxide, Methane and
Hydrogen fluoride). It was launched along with the Cartosat-2C
satellite atop PSLV-C34. It weighed about 1.5 kilograms. Launched on
22nd July 2016 from Satish Dhawan Launnch pad one. The development
of SathyabamaSat was initiated in 2009 when ISRO and Sathyabama
University signed an MoU to support the design, development and
launch of the satellite. Initially, a space technology centre was
established to carry out preliminary studies about the project
including advanced research in rocketry, satellites and space
applications, the project was carried out with the assistance of ISRO
scientists. As per the University, the objective of project was to provide
development experience of compact space systems to students. The
payload was the Argus IR Spectrometer, same as SRMSat. The reading
of the IR spectrometer is relayed to the ground station of the satellite
at the Sathyabama University in Chennai, whenever the location is
visible to the satellite.

The orbital parameters are as follows:

Type of Orbit LEO

Perigee 502.9 km
Apogee 525.2 km
Inclination 97.5 degrees
Period 95 minutes

The satellite is spin stabilised

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SathyabamaSat assembled

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Swayam:
Swamyam is a satellite built by the students of College of Engineering,
Pune, under the guidance of ISRO, whose initial design and
development completed in January 2015. It was launched along with
SathyabamaSat on PSLV C-34 on June 22 2016.

Its payload was to provide point to point messaging services for HAM
users. Scientific objective of the satellite is to demonstrate passive
attitude control to stabilise and appropriately orient the satellite. This
technique is being used for the first time on an Indian Satellite.

The systems of the satellite work in perfect conjunction with each

other. The power system comes on first, which is completely analog
and prevents faults due to temperature fluctuations and other perils of
space orbit. Load protection circuits are designed for triple redundancy
and work in coordination with On-board Computer and Terminal
Node Controller. The Power system is responsible for the deployment
of the antenna for the communication system through a surge of
current. Li-ion batteries are used for energy storage. The Onboard
Computer is the second system to power up. It consists of a
AT91SAM7x512 microchip, and plays a major role in the deployment of
the antenna, point-to-point communication, storing health monitoring
data, and sending it to the ground station at appropriate intervals. The
Communication subsystem is responsible for enabling half-duplex
communication of the satellite with various ground stations in the
HAM band of 434-438 MHz which is used both for up-linking and
down-linking data. The Attitude Control System of the satellite is a
special feature of the satellite.

The ACS consists of permanent magnets and soft magnetic materials

in the form of hysteresis rods. These damp the oscillations of the
satellite and the magnets orient the satellites antenna along the
magnetic field of the earth. Together, the system is called PMACS or
Passive Magnetic Attitude Control System. This uses no electricity and
is quit robust, due to lack of electronic or rotating parts.

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The orbital parameters:

Type of Orbit LEO

Perigee 499.6 km
Apogee 520.1 km
Inclination 97.5 degrees
Period 94.7 minutes

Swayam after full assembly. The extendable dipole antenna is the rod
with the Indian colors on it.

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PISAT PESIT Imaging SATellite:
This is a remote sensing nanosatellite developed by the PES Institute
of Technology, Bengaluru. Its main objective was to develop the
capability of designing space systems in university environment.

PISAT is configured with various subsystems namely: Payload, an

imaging camera, structure, thermal, communication system, control,
actuators and sensors, on-board computers, electrical systems and
mission aspects. It weighs approximately 5.35 kilograms with
dimensions of 254 mm x 226 mm x 181 mm. It uses three-spin
stabilization and magnetotorquers in conjuction with sensors as the
Attitude Control System.

The Onboard Computer consists of a high Performance 32 bit AVR32

(AT32UC3A0512) RISC C with a clock speed of 12MHz, in-built
EEPROM of 4MB , 64 kB SRAM , Timers, Analog data channels, PWM
and ACTEL Anti Fuse FPGA (A54SX72A-208) for Telemetry,
Telecommand, and glue logic.

The power source consists of a Li-ion battery of 5200 mAh capacity

and solar panels which generate about 10 watts of power, sufficient to
power the satellite and charge the batteries.

It consists of a full duplex comm system with frequency between 2030

MHz to 2240 MHz.

The orbital parameters are:

Type of Orbit LEO

Perigee 670 km
Apogee 670 km
Inclination 98.2 degrees
Period 98.4 minutes

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 PISAT after undergoing tests at ISRO

It was launched with Pratham, a satellite made in IIT Bombay, on

PSLV-C35 along with SCATSAT 1, on September 26th 2016, at 9.30 am
IST from Sri Harikota.

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Pratham:
Pratham is an Indian ionospheric research satellite which will be
operated by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay as part of the
Student Satellite Initiative. Its primary mission is to count electrons
(Total Electron Count ot TEC) in the Earth's ionosphere over India and
Paris with a resolution 1km x 1km location grid. It was launched with
PISAT, a satellite made in PESIT, Bengaluru, on PSLV-C35 along with
SCATSAT 1, on September 26th 2016, at 9.30 am IST from Sri Harikota.

Its payload is an instrument consisting of two monopole antennae

transmitting linear polarized waves at frequencies 145.98 MHz and
437.455 MHz for measurement of TEC of ionosphere. It weighs about
10.7 kilograms with dimensions of 305 mm x 335 mm x 466 mm. It is
three-spin stabilized and magnetotorquers using data from a tri-axial
magnetometer.

The Onboard computer consists of an ATmega-128 Microcontroller,

powered by a 7800 mAh Li-ion battery. A solar array generating about
10 watts is used to charge the battery and power the sensors and
payload. It uses half duplex mode with a frequency of 437.455 MHz.

The orbital parameters are:

Type of Orbit LEO

Perigee 668.3 km
Apogee 713.9 km
Inclination 98.165 degrees
Period 98.4 minutes

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Pratham final flight model

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NIUSAT Noorul Islam University SATellite:
This satellite was eveloped by Noorul Islam University , Kumaracoil,
Thukkalay, Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, under the technical
guidance and support from ISRO. Its main objective was earth imaging
in the visible spectrum. It weighed 14.93 kilograms on launch and has
dimensions of 348 mm x 348 mm x 370 mm. Hence it is a
microsatellite. It uses both magnetotorquers and three-spin
stablization systems for attitude control.

The Onboard Computer used a dual core 32 bit E200 Pentium

processor and 16 GB of flash storage for payload data. The power
system consisted of 2 reacharble batteries 5000mAh each, collectively
producing 10000mAh of power. The solar arrays provide 40 watts of
power to charge the batteries and power the satellite. They are sun
tracking to maximize efficiency.

The payload was a 30 megapixel resolution, multispectral camera with

a ground resolution of 60 km2. A dedicated Mission Control Centre
with UHF/VHF antenna for Telemetry/Tele-command operations and
S-band antenna for Payload data reception has been established at the
university.

It was launched on 23rd June 2017 at 9.30 am IST, aboard the PSLV-C38,
along with a CARTOSAT -2 series satellite.

The Orbital Parameters are:

Type of Orbit LEO

Perigee 560 km
Apogee 880 km
Inclination 97-99 degrees
Period 94.8 minutes

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NIUSAT final flight model

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References:

http://www.isro.gov.in/spacecraft/list-of-university-academic-
institute-satellites

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANUSAT

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUDSAT

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRMSat

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugnu_(satellite)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SathyabamaSAT

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swayam

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratham

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISAT

pesit.org/pisat

isac.gov.in

n2yo.com

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