Introduction

After successful launch of Swayam, COEP’s Satellite Initiative has geared up for its next mission as an experiment for alternate means of space travel with the help of solar sails.

Mission Objective

The mission objective is to justify solar sails as an alternative means of space travel by manoeuvring from low earth orbit to a higher orbit and to collect useful scientific data during its journey.The utility of the project is to characterize the low earth orbit with charged particle monitoring. Charged particle monitor will output to analog conditioning circuitry and digital capture block .

Presently, there has been no successful attempt of orbit raising in the earth’s atmosphere with solar sails. This demands the need of continuous active precise control on the orientation of the sail for achieving maximum force at required points and minimizing atmospheric drag at other points.

Current status

The project had started in mid 2015, the team has completed the feasibility study of using solar sails in a satellite of dimensions 160 * 160 * 260 mm . We are in the block diagram study and preliminary design phase of the satellite.

Specifications

Volume – 160 x 160 x 260 mm

Deployable solar panels with peak generation of about 30 watts.

Li-ion battery

UHF HAM band communication

Reaction wheel for orientation and magnetorquers for stabilisation

ADCS sensors – GPS, Inertial measurement unit (IMU) and photodiode

Payload of the satellite is a scintillation detector which will detect the charged particle in space.

Current Project Manager:

Bhaskar Pardeshi (Final Year, Computer Engineering)

Email-ID: projectmanager.csat@coep.ac.in

Current Administrative Lead:

Daksha Kasliwal (Final Year, Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering)

Email-ID: admin.csat@coep.ac.in