The ground tracking station at the Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology (NMIT) in Yelahanka, 20 km from Bangalore, where India’s smallest satellite was incubated over the past two years, is abuzz.

It has been two days since Studsat, a ‘pico-satellite’ weighing under 1 kg, developed by students from seven colleges led by NMIT, was successfully launched from Sriharikota on board PSLV-C-15 along with four other satellites, and the amateur tracking and telemetry station is tuned to the satellite’s HAM frequency.

The first ‘beacon’ from the satellite, signalling its health, was received at 11.07 am on July 12, much to the joy of the 35-40 students — a majority of them from NMIT, besides students from MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology, RV College of Engineering and MNS Institute of Technology in Bangalore and three other colleges in Hyderabad — who spearheaded the ambitious project, with guidance and encouragement from the Indian Space Research Organisation.

In a few days, images of the earth taken by the on-board camera will start streaming in every time Studsat passes over the station — three to five times a day — and they could be useful in vegetation, soil content and distance studies.

Measuring just 10 cm X 10 cm X 11 cm and developed at a cost of Rs 55 lakh pooled by the consortium of colleges, Studsat, which has a cubic design that enhances stability and makes optimum internal space available for components, was a student initiative spurred by a lecture by DVA Raghava Murthy, Project Director, Small Satellite Projects, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, at the 2007 International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad.

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