ADream. A Journey. A Purpose. Sometimes words fall terribly short when it comes to describing a moment. Sometimes, the very attempt to glorify a moment causes it to lose its shine. Because some moments have a uniqueness of their own, a distinct emotion which cannot be fully re-constructed from the emotions known to humans. Some moments are meant to be experienced, not recorded or observed. A similar moment was witnessed on 26 September 2016, when, with the release of gas fumes from the PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), a few dreams, held patiently for a long time, took flight.
‘Why don’t we build a satellite of our own?’
In 2008, two students of IITB (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay), Saptarshi Bandopadhyay and Shashank Tamaskar came up with an idea, an idea that was to usher in a new era of space technology in IITB and, to a great extent, the whole of India. The question was simple, “Why don’t we build a satellite of our own?” The answer, revolutionary.
The idea generated unprecedented enthusiasm among the students. The concept of building a satellite was appealing enough. All the ingredients were present: challenge, motivation, exploration, pressure, expectations, pride, glory. Consequently, innumerable applications came in whenever the team-recruitments were announced. The applicants were then filtered via a technical written test, a mini-project, and a few months of apprenticeship, before finally being inducted into the team. Over the years, more than 100 students from IITB, from nearly every branch of engineering, have been a part of this project. Pratham became one of the very few interdisciplinary teams in the institute which could boast of a remarkable diversity. Students from both under-graduate and post-graduate programmes have been a part of the project, some of them since their first year, right upto the final year.
Objectives of Pratham
Among the mission objectives of Pratham, empowering the students involved, with the skill set required to develop a satellite through various stages of design, analysis, fabrication and testing is at the forefront. The payload is to measure the Total Electron Count (TEC) in the ionosphere above India and Paris. This data will help in the correction of GPS signals, thereby increasing their accuracy. Also, this data, in very rare cases, can help predict tsunamis.
Along with the scientific objective of Pratham, one of the goals of this project was to share with the society, the knowledge that we have been privileged to acquire, being in one of the premier institutes of the country. The vision in mind was to start a collaboration between various Indian universities interested in contributing to the space sector, and ensuring sharing of knowledge and facilities between them. Pratham was to be the first step towards that goal. To realise that, various workshops and sessions have been conducted by the team in our own institute and other universities as well. This has resulted in successful completion of ground-stations for satellite tracking in quite a few colleges, for example Atharva College of Engineering. We are in collaboration with a few international universities as well like UCL (University College London) and IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris).
For the relevance of our satellite to the student community, we will be transmitting satellite data when the satellite passes over India, so that any interested university with a small ground station will not only be able to detect the beacon signal from our satellite, but will also be able to measure TEC above their ground station.
The real gains
However, the contribution of Pratham is not limited to this. Quoting Sanyam Mulay, an ex-Project Manager of Pratham, “This one single project has given a lot to the institute in the form of individuals who know how real life is.” It’s a well-known fact that hands-on projects do exceptionally well when it comes to value-addition to an individual. While a theory course is more ‘direct’ and convenient when it comes to knowledge transfer, a project is more involved but far more effective, because it trains students the hard way. A project presents to an individual an opportunity to learn skills completely out of the purview of theory courses: networking, presentation, communication, team-building and the list goes on. Pratham, however, has even more to offer. One distinct attribute people develop after working in the team is ‘system level understanding’; how the various subsystems interact with each other, how the changes in one subsystem propagate and affect all the subsystems, how one has to think about the larger interests of the project, even if it means some compromise with his own subsystem.
One of the exceptional perks of working with Pratham was the opportunity to interact with ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) scientists. Various reviews were conducted over the years, right since the inception of Pratham: Conceptual Design Review, Preliminary Design Review, Critical Design Review, Pre-Shipment Review, Post Launch Review etc. It was amazing to see the amount of time given by the ISRO scientists to our project, in spite of their extremely busy schedules and numerous other projects. ISRO scientists are very humble, polite and down-to-earth people. Any help needed, they were always available. And the technical insights and the ingenious solutions to problems provided to us by the scientists during the reviews were priceless. Space doesn’t give a second chance. Hence, it hardly comes as a surprise that tight tolerances were demanded from us. This was a relatively novel thing for engineers, who generally work with liberal tolerances, and made the project even more challenging and hence, more interesting.
Apart from the review meetings, various tests for the satellite were also conducted at the ISRO Satellite Center (ISAC), Bangalore. These tests brought in their own set of experiences, which are now treasured memories. With some tests running for 48 hours at a stretch and all the team members wide awake during the entire time, debugging problems 30 hours into the test and providing instant solutions, without which the tests could have been postponed for an indefinite period, you can imagine just how intense the atmosphere was during the tests. Calling these tests as little adventures would perhaps be more apt, since all aspects of an adventure were present: adrenaline rush, pressure, euphoric moments, stress cycles (literally) and what not. The learnings acquired during these tests would have been impossible to find elsewhere in the four years of engineering.
Finally, the last aspect of working with Pratham, without which the article will be incomplete, is the Team. It’s very rare that you find a team so dedicated, so well-bonded and so efficient as Pratham. It wasn’t a team; it was a big little family. It comes as no surprise that the alumni of Pratham are still in constant contact with each other, and the current team. Efficient knowledge transfer from one team to another has helped the project a lot. And work was just one of the things we did with the team. There were numerous night-outs, treats, treks and what not. A motivated team was necessary to execute a project of the scale and duration of Pratham, and Pratham was lucky to have one throughout.
Now, after the successful completion of the launch, the current team is busy in the post-launch activities, namely, tracking of the satellite and data-collection. We are also constantly in touch with the students of other universities where ground-stations have been set up for Pratham. A section of the team is involved in the transfer of knowledge to the younger members of the team. After all, if the knowledge gained over so many years doesn’t propagate across the batches, it will be a terrible waste, won’t it?
Pratham, meanwhile, continues to orbit the globe, inspiring a few students every day to build, to innovate, to explore. It’s not for nothing, that we call Pratham as the ‘First Step Towards Infinity’.