Work done by seven batches of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) students in past nine years, seemed to have finally paid-off on Monday morning as ISRO lauched Pratham— a satellite made by the students of the institute.
At 11.26 am, when ISRO announced that Pratham has been ejected in the orbit, tears joy rolled down from students involved in the project's eyes.
Speaking about the achievement, Tushar Jadhav, former project manager, Pratham said, "We did it!" "I joined this team more than five years ago. Messages have been pouring in our message box to congratulate us since 9.12 am when the satellite got lifted off," he added.
The launch was live streamed in the VMCC hall at IIT-B as the satellite was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. Ex-students staying abroad also participated in the launch of Pratham through video conferencing.
The satellite is designed to fit within a cube of 30 cm side and weighs nearly 10.15 kg. The satellite was conceptualised by two aerospace students, Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay and Shashank Tamaskar.
Since 2007, over 100 students from seven batches got associated with Pratham, which will help in tsunami warnings and correcting errors in GPS communication.
Jhonny Jha, ex-project manager of Pratham, said, "The life of this mission is four months. After four months, all the data will be collected together," and added: "The major work will start now. As we will start gathering data. The data will help the scientists who are doing scientific research."
"Students from various institutes can keep a track of the updates through our websites and Facebook page. We will also be sharing few blogs written by the team members about their journey and experience throughout the project," said Manvi Dhawan, project manager, Pratham.
Director of IIT-B, Professor Devang Khakhar, said, "After the hard work put in by the team for this project, they should ensure the continuity of the project by going a step further in building the second satellite. The institute will fully support such a venture as it has done till now."
