A private engineering college in the Salem district, Tamil Nadu is celebrating the work of its students who constructed a crucial part of the GSLV-F14 rocket, which was utilised in the most recent successful launch by ISRO of a weather satellite.

On February 17, the space agency headquartered in Bengaluru successfully launched the INSAT-3DS satellite from the Sriharikota spaceport, which is close to Chennai.

Crucial magnet stepper motors in the mixture control actuator were built by the SonaSPEED (Sona Special Power Electronics and Electric Drives) branch of the Sona College of Technology, Salem, which is about 320 km from Chennai, PTI reports. These motors were utilised in the launch vehicle's cryogenic stage.

The Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) is a three-stage rocket, with an indigenous cryogenic upper stage.

"The mixture control actuator helps mix liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen in precise combination for a perfect lift-off," a press release from the college said on Friday, February 23.

Scientists of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram tested the components ahead of the launch.

"Sona research team rigorously followed the process in the design and manufacture of this critical piece of equipment," Sona College of Technology Principal SRR Senthil Kumar said.

The college claims that during the current academic year, it has been awarded research funding totalling millions of dollars by the National Technical Textile Mission, IBM, and the Department of Space and Technology.

Before its successful launch by ISRO in 2017, students from Sona College of Technology and five other colleges collaborated on the building of a student satellite.