Mangaluru: Alva’s Education Foundation, Moodbidri, has been working with Planet Aerospace, a group of retired ISRO scientists, to manufacture a nano satellite. Dattatreya, dean and senior professor (planning), department of electronics and communication, Alva’s Engineering College, told  that the main intention of creating the nano satellite is to find a solution to the core issues concerning the district.

“We are mainly focussing on soil fertility and what crops could be grown here and the availability of groundwater. Usually, farmers here try to cultivate crops without knowing about the quality of the soil and other aspects and burn their hands. We are coming up with a solution to such issues through the proposed satellite. We also intend to study the Western Ghats and the amount of deforestation,” he said.
According to Dattatreya, plans are afoot to learn about atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind direction, duration of sunshine and rainfall among others with the help of the satellite.

Vivek Alva, trustee of the institute, said a cursory session had recently been held where experts from Planet Aerospace gave a fair idea to about 350 students from the institute on creating a satellite and the working of its various components. A team of 30-40 students will be formed to create the nano satellite. A few senior faculty members, too, will join these batches.

“There are as many as 10 components such as payload, camera, power required, communication and ground handling among others, we need to work on. We will assign the programming part to select students from computer science, power system analysis to electronics students and structural aspects to mechanical engineering students among others,” Dattatreya added. The intention is also to give students hands-on experience in research as many students of late are resorting to readymade research materials, he added.

Once the nano satellite is ready and approved by ISRO, the space organisation will provide the institute a bus for the launch, Dattatreya said. Rajangam, former deputy director, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, who is now a part of Planet Aerospace, said his team will provide technical guidance to Alva’s institute throughout the process and will keep visiting the facility in Moodbidri as and when required. The project is expected to be completed in three-four years.