BITS students build near-space micro satellite to study space weather, radiation patterns

Sanket Deshpande — a final year engineering student at BITS Pilani, Goa — has not taken a single vacation in four years. Instead, Sanket and four other engineering students at the engineering institute spent their time in building a near space micro satellite named ‘Apeiro’ with the aim to study space weather and radiation patterns. The satellite is set to be launched in mid December.

The project began with an idea that Sanket had in mind while he was in his first year back in 2014. “A lot of my seniors had worked on space weather and had highlighted the need to study radiations in space in the past. After reading about the existing work, I came across the idea of studying radiations in space. With commercial flying booming fast, cosmic radiation can have a severe impact on the health of commercial pilots. In order to warn pilots about weather conditions and risks around a particular flying zone, one needs to have a detailed data about the same,” Sanket said.
 
Four other students — Lucky Kapoor, Shivangi Kamat, Pankaj Tiple,Vibhav Joshi and Aishwarya Pravin — soon joined Sanket.

“We spoke to several senior scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Bhaba Atomic Research Centre. The biggest challenge was to get a launching facility. But thankfully, TIFR offered to launch the satellite at their ballooning facility in Hyderabad at no cost,” said Aishwarya Pravin, a Project Apeiro member.

The payload will be launched from TIFR's ballooning facility in Hyderabad in the last week of December.The satellite would float at the altitude of 22kms after which it can be tracked and the data on space radiation can be obtained. 

Satyanarayana Bheesette,Scientific Officer TIFR said that he was impressed with the project which he said 'inspired a lot of people' at the institute. "It was almost two years ago that I was approached by these students. I guided them to convert the ideas into actual pieces of detectors, instrumentation and electronics and solve their integration problems. It was high commendable that they could work on this project, while giving their best to their highly demanding academic requirements. Now the payload is fully ready and passed all the stringent tests, and it will be flown soon aboard a balloon by the National Balloon Facility of TIFR” he added