Student satellite Anusat to ride into space soon

India's first student-made satellite, the Anusat will be launched on 5-6 April, the Indian Space Research Organisation has announced. The nano-satellite will be carried on the back of polar satellite launch vehicle Risat-2.

Anusat is designed to carry out drought and wasteland monitoring, urban planning, and mineralogical mapping, among other things. It will separate from RISAT-2 in space and establish itself in its own designated orbit.

The satellite has been developed and constructed by 37 aerospace engineering students and 10 of their instructors at the Madras Institute of Technology, the alma mater of former President and rocket scientist A P J Abdul Kalam. (See: ISRO to launch student-made nano satellites)

"This is the first time we are launching a satellite made by students and the idea is to motivate the younger generation to work for India's space missions," ISRO's chief spokesperson S Satish said.

A spokesman for Anna University, the parent body governing the institute, said Anusat will operate in a low earth orbit, at an altitude between 600 and 800 km. Data from its "store and forward" payload will be received at both Chennai Tech University and Pune University, providing students with hands-on experience in space sciences and technology. It will be most useful for amateur communication.

The mother satellite, the four-stage PSLV Risat-2 is an all-weather reconnaissance satellite. A critical part of the 1,780 kg remote-sensing satellite – the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) – was made in Israel.

India facilitated the launch of Israel's TecSAR satellite last year, which was also equipped with SAR, providing reconnaissance capabilities with a resolution of about 10 cm.

Satish denied suggestions that RISAT-2 will be used for spying purposes, telling CNN, "As far as ISRO is concerned, this (spying) is not one of the applications."