Small satellite research centre developed by engineering students in Bangalore

Bangalore: The STUDSAT (Student Satellite) is a unique satellite technology endeavour undertaken by Under-Graduate students in India. "STUDSAT" is the first Pico-Satellite launched by India. A private engineering college Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology as Lead College under the guidance of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has started this initiative.

The idea and design of the Project STUDSAT by Under-Graduate students from seven different Academic Institutions across two different regions of India were presented in International Astronautical Conference - 2008, Glasgow. The paper was awarded the Best Student Team Award - Hans Von Muldau Award which was the first Indian team to have won in this global arena.

As a culmination to all the efforts from the past more than three years, STUDSAT was put into its lower earth orbit of 637 km by PSLV-C15 on the 12th July, 2010 from Sriharikota at 09:43 IST. This was a remarkable event in the Space Expedition of India, when the first Indian Pico satellite was put into orbit successfully.

In the growing area of space technology, satellites focus on big data to be transmitted to the Ground Station. As a part of STUDSAT (STUDent SATellite) Program, at Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology has a state of art of tracking and receiving data from amateur satellites.

NASTRAC - Nitte Amateur Satellite Tracking Centre (Ground Station) is designed to track satellites working in UHF and VHF frequencies. NASTRAC was inaugurated by Dr. K Radhakrishnan, Chairman, ISRO on 30th March 2010. NASTRAC received the first beacon signals from STUDSAT after its Launch on 12th July 2010.

By 11.02 IST, beacon signals transmitted by STUDSAT while making its first PASS over the NASTRAC were successfully received and decoded. Thus, indicating the normal functioning of the Satellite as a whole.

NASTRAC in past four years could track two other Indian University Satellites, SRMSAT from SRM University, Chennai and JUGNU from IIT-Kanpur on 12th October 2011.

STRaND-1 is a cube-satellite developed by Surrey University's Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) which was launched on 25th February 2014. On request from the University of Surrey STRaND-1 was tracked in its first pass at NASTRAC and received data was shared with the STRaND-1 Team.

The NASTRAC could track successfully VELOX I at 22:37 hours IST, 1st July'14 which was launched by PSLV C 23 on 30th June 2014.