Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to India’s 75 students’ satellites mission during his address to the global leaders at the 76th United…

Now, to mark the 75th anniversary of Indias independence, the Indian Space & Research Organisation (ISRO) is going to launch 75 student satellites.The programme is named as 75 Students Satellites Consortium: Mission 2022.Under this programme, the students will build these 75 student satellites and will be launched with ISRO rockets in phases between August 15, 2022, and 2023. The project has been initiated under the Indian Technology Congress Association (ITCA).The objective is to bring together Universities, engineering colleges and schools that would design, build, integrate and test their student-built satellites. In 2021, Indian scientists had built three satellites called UNITYSat, which was launched as the co-passenger of ISROs PSLV C51 on the Amazonia mission. The students had learnt significant lessons in UNITYSat and were now implementing them to build 75 satellites. Once the PSLV rocket places them in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), each satellite will remain in earth orbit for a year and will provide data to the ground stations. Meanwhile, the students would learn to operate the satellite from ground stations and track the data. Each of the 75 satellites has an individual mission: capture images, gather data and collect information. These satellites have been designed to promote the Internet of Things (IoT) in space.India is already a well-established space power. The expansion and qualitative developments in technology or research programmes require spread of activities and a healthy competition among academic research organisations. In fact, academia and industry are the two strong pillars of ISRO. This academia element can address cutting-edge R&D capability/capacity in space, science missions and knowledge as users and research, industrial research and space education for R&D issues.Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unleashed a set of massive reforms in the space sector. This far-reaching Space Reforms initiative, promulgated by the Government of India in MayJune 2020, gave a major fillip to private sector space industry, including the start-ups.Major objectives under the reforms include:

1. Level playing field for private companies in satellites, launches, and space.2. A clear policy and regulatory environment to private players.3. Access to ISRO facilities and other relevant assets for use by the private sector to improve their capacities.4. Future projects for planetary exploration, outer space travel, etc., to open for private sector; and5. Liberalising geospatial data policy for providing remote-sensing data to tech-entrepreneurs.

This is not all. Some of the key reforms in the regulatory and policy aspect in the recent past include:

1. NewSpace India Initiative Commercial arm of ISRO aimed at production and marketing of space-based services, including launch services and space-based applications like transponder leasing, remote sensing, and mission support services. NewSpace India enables better collaboration with start-ups and private sector players.2. Spacecom Policy 2020 allows for space companies to leverage the FDI norms to encourage foreign investments in Indias private space sector.3. IN SPACe is a nodal agency that acts as a promoter and regulator of all space-related activities. Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) was created on June 24, 2020, with the objectives of hand-holding, promoting, and guiding the private industries in space activities.4. Budget 2021Rs. 14,000 Crore has been allocated under the Make in India initiative for the promotion and development of the space industry in India.That is how India, with its massive talent pool, is fast becoming home to several start ups in the space technology sector. In just two years since the space sector was opened up, over 55 start-ups have registered with the ISRO. Out of the 55 proposals, 29 pertain to satellites, 10 to space applications and products, eight to launch vehicles, and eight to ground systems and research. Nine proposals of start-ups are expected to be completed by 2022-23. Various scientific applications are being worked out since the initiative was launched for sectors such as agriculture, food, education, skills, railways, roads, water power, electricity and coal.Back to 75 Students Satellites Consortium: Mission 2022. Each educational institution involved in the project will be spending about Rs.80 lakh to Rs.2 Crores on satellite and ground station networks. All the educational institutions part of the project will have access to all the satellites in the constellation.Indian Technology Congress Association has collaborated with various organisations such as TMISAT of Israel, CSPD Serbia and UNISEC of Japan to design and launch the student-built satellites. The mission has expanded with over 50 countries contributing to building strong capabilities in academic institutions for the design and development of student-built SmallSats.As far as ISRO is concerned, three big missions are in the pipeline for this year. These include the Chandryaan-3 mission to the Moon, the Aditya L-1 mission that will study the Sun, and the most ambitious uncrewed launch of the Gaganyaan mission.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to India's 75 students' satellites mission during his address to the global leaders at the 76th United...