IITians' Nano Satellite Launched

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 13 October 2011, 00:55 IST   |    6 Comments
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IITians' Nano Satellite Launched
Bangalore: Jugnu, the Nano satellite designed by IIT Kanpur students has been launched via PSLV C-18 rocket from Shrihari Kota, Andhra Pradesh 11:00 hrs today, reports TNN. This is the country's first Nano satellite and weighs just 3 Kgs incorporated with PSLV C-18. The mission of developing Jugnu was done under the guidance of Prof. N.S vyas. this is extremely a complex process and this was a hard exercise. The Nano satellite has been designed ethnically. "We have done our best. Jugnu has undergone laborious tests like thermo vacuum tests, vibration tests and electronic magnetic interference test. Students have worked very hard in developing Jugnu. They have worked round-the-clock. We are hopeful of its successful launch," said Vyas. The payload of the satellite has uniquely designed camera for infra red remote sensing, a GPS receiver and an inertial measurement unit. Shatanu Agarwal, the team head of Jugnu said "About 25 minutes after the launch, Jugnu would will click the first image of its launch vehicle and its antennas would be deployed. It will then stabilize and start transmitting images to the ground station." After 115 minutes of the take off Jugnu was visible at the ground station. "Jugnu's beacon (blinking signal at all times all over the earth) will get switched on after 30 minutes of separation from the launch vehicle. Five seconds after its separation, Jugnu will click its image," said Shantanu. It took two years to develop this Nano satellite and as people working on it used non space grade, commercial off the shelf (COTS) to make the research on Jugnu affordable. Jugnu has minimum number of redundant systems when compared to other conventional satellites. The satellite encompasses of nine sub systems. Six for housekeeping (attitude determination and control system, communication system, on board computer, power, structure and thermal control system) and three payload GPS, IR-Imaging and IMU. an additional system, ejection mechanism has been made for the separation of the satellite from the Rocket. Professor NS Vyas, head of the project, Prof Raghu Ram, student team head Shantanu Agarwal, Chintalagiri Shashank Praneeth, Kshitij Deo, Anant Goel, Kumar Dev Vrat, Rohit Ranjan, Parul Singh and Shruti Mittal were present at Shriharikota during the launch of Jugnu, and is a historic moment for IIT-Kanpur and the country.