Aligarh, Oct 29 (IANS): The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has initiated work on its own ambitious space programme which has been approved by the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe), working under the Department of Space.

The project involves the development of 'SS AMU SAT', the first satellite programme named after its founder, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan.

The SS AMU SAT is a Nanosatellite Project which began in November 2021 under the AMU Robo Club.

The satellite is a 3U CubeSat with multiple objectives which include the study of economic growth in India's poorest districts using satellite imagery and the implementation of an in-house developed image compression technology for faster multimedia transmission. In addition to these, the satellite will also test various satellite sub-systems that have been built in-house.

The project was submitted to IN-SPACe in January 2023, for approval, registration, frequency allocation and launch of SS AMU SAT.

In September 2023, the Student Satellite Committee, chaired by Dr P.K. Jain, Director (PMAD), IN-SPACe, reviewed the design and approved the proposal with a condition that AMU will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with IN-SPACe for all activities from the development of the SS AMU SAT to its launch into the Lower Earth Orbit.

The students’ team, which is involved in the development of the project, is led by Poorti Varshney and mentored by Dr. C. A. Prabhakar (Former Project Director, ISRO) and Faraz Ahmad (a 2013 batch alumnus).

The project has received technical support from AMU alumni working with ISRO and several industrial experts across the globe.

The project is tentatively scheduled to be launched in six months.