To commemorate 75 years of Indian independence, the MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences (MSRUAS) in Bengaluru is set to launch a student satellite. The satellite named Ramaiah Sat will be built coinciding with Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the same was signed between the varsity and the Indian Technology Congress Association (ITCA) on Tuesday, July 19.

MSRUAS Vice-Chancellor Professor Kuldeep K Raina and ITCA President LV Muralikrishna Reddy inked the pact in the presence of Chancellor MR Jayaram, and Chief Executive MR Sreenivasa Murthy, among others. Professor Raina said it was an opportunity to showcase MSRUAS's prowess in space technology, as per a PTI report.

The satellite will weigh slightly over a kilo and will cost Rs 1 crore. It will be built under the monitoring of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and with the help of the ITCA. The ITCA is the nodal agency in charge of 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," as per information by National News.

According to an MSRUAS statement, "Ramaiah Sat is a 1.6 kg class satellite with a 300 grams IoT (Internet of Things) payload for monitoring other satellites. The satellite mission functional attributes are water quality monitoring, providing wireless communication network in remote areas, passive radar for weather monitoring and fisherman SOS," as noted in the PTI report.

ISRO will launch the satellite with UHF (ultrahigh frequency) and VHF (very high frequency) links with a satellite ground station at MSRUAS's Peenya Campus. As per the directives of the government's 75 student satellite mission, the satellite will be launched in August 2022.