Megha-Tropiques to be launched with Help of SRM University

What is Megha-Tropiques Mission ?

It is a mission to study the water cycle in the tropical atmosphere in the context of climate change. It is a collaborative effort between Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). Scrapped in 2003, Megha-Tropiques was later revived in 2004 when India increased its contribution and costs were lowered. With the progress made by GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment), Megha-Tropiques currently is being designed to understand tropical meteorological and climatic processes, by obtaining reliable statistics on the water and energy budget of the tropical atmosphere.

Through an Indo-French venture to study the atmosphere in the tropical regions, students of SRM University, Chennai have devised the Megha-Tropiques, which will take off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on October 12 in PSLV-C18 (which will carry the Megha-Tropiques.
SRMSAT, a nano-satellite, to monitor the green house gases, carbon-dioxide and water vapour in the tropics using a grating spectrometer will be launched along with it.

“Fifty students were involved in the design and development of SRMSAT, one of the first nano-satellites to be launched by a private university in the country,” said P. Sathyanarayanan, president, SRM University.

“There is a dedicated lab at the university. All the students involved in the project worked at the lab, after college hours, for the past two years, choosing to stay late in the night designing and testing each and every instrument,” says L.B. Vishal, a mechanical engineering student.

 The project did encounter its ups and downs. The students found that the power amplifier on board was dissipating heat and as a result, the students came up with heat sinks. Communication systems were arrived at after a lot of simulation. Students of 12 departments began work on the satellite with the survey of literature and Loganathan, a former ISRO scientist and product architect of space systems at the university, who was available 24x7 to make the dream project a reality. ISRO scientists conducted a review of the project every month and gave insights.

Of cuboid model, the nano-satellite weighs 10.4 kg with three solar panels and was made at a cost of Rs.1.5 crore. The grating spectrometer will monitor earth-based sources and sinks of green house gases for the next two years.

Already in place, the ground station consists of two Yagi-Uda antennae with low noise amplifiers and Trans-receiver and auto tracking is through a satellite tracking programme. “The ground station has been tested by tracking the existing satellites,” says D. Narayana Rao, Director, Research.

“The University is in talks with ISRO to start a Centre for Space Sciences in its Chennai campus. It will take six months to crystallize,” Mr. Sathyanarayanan said. University Chancellor T.R. Pachamuthu and Vice-Chancellor M. Ponnavaikko were present.