EDUSAT

INTRODUCTION

EduSAT is an Italian microsatellite which was launched in August 2011.

The satellite was built and is operated by the Sapienza University of
Rome in conjunction with the Italian Space Agency ASI, and is primarily
used for educational outreach and technology demonstration.

EduSAT is a 10-kilogram (22 lb) satellite, measuring 31.5 by 31.5 by 26.0

centimetres (12.4 in × 12.4 in × 10.2 in). The spacecraft is powered by
surface-mounted solar cells. It carries an experimental analogue sun
sensor, a magnetometer and a temperature sensor. The satellite also tested
a prototype Pocket Qube deployer and a passive deorbit mechanism. As of
September 2013 it remained operational.

EduSAT was launched aboard a Dnepr carrier rocket from Site 370/13 at
the Dombarovsky launch site in Russia. The launch was conducted
by Kosmotras with liftoff occurring at 07:12:20 on 17 August 2011. The
rocket carried six other satellites, with an additional payload bolted to the
upper stage. The satellite was placed into a sun-synchronous low Earth
orbit. As of 22 November 2013 it was in an orbit with a perigee of 644
kilometres (400 mi), an apogee of 699 kilometres (434 mi), 98.20 degrees
inclination and a period of 98.04 minutes.
ROLE OF EDUSAT IN EDUCATION

EDUSAT was India’s first full fledged educational satellite. It’s first
operational flight took place on 20th September 2004 from the Satish
Dhawan space centre Sriharikottah . After a 17 minutes flight, the satellite
weighing 1950 kg was successfully placed in a geo-transfer orbit at a height
of 180 km above the earth. It is manipulated by the satellite centre of the
ISRO at Bangalore. The projected life of the EDUSAT is 7 to 10 years and it
can cover whole geographical India. EDUSAT is mainly indented to meet
the demand for an interactive, satellite based distance education system for
the country. It is collaborative project of the MHRD, IGNOU and the ISRO.

EDUSAT can cover the whole geographical India with it’s five sport beams
covering the northern, north eastern, southern and western region of the
country. The sport beams (in Ku-band frequency) used in the EDUSAT are
more powerful than that of the INSAT -3B. As a result, it’s signals can the
received with a smaller satellite dish and consequently the reception
terminal is cheaper.

The EDUSAT is specially configured for an audio visual medium, employing

a digital interactive class room and multimedia multi-centric system. It is
primarily meet for providing connectivity to the school, college and higher
levels of education and also to support non formal education, including
developmental communication .
 FUNCTIONS
1) It covers all geographical area inside the country
2) It can provide interactive and cost effective education.
3) It can provide consistency to information.
4) The spot beams used in the EDUSAT are more powerful and signals can be
received with a smaller satellite dish.
5) It is a satellite fully dedicated to the cause of education.
6) It is useful to implement virtual class room in remote and rural schools.
The teacher at the transmission end virtually becomes available to all the
virtual classrooms at the receiving end. This process can help in
overcoming shortage of trained teachers if in service training is giving to
the existing teachers in the most economical way.
7) It can provide audiovisual medium and interactive multimedia facility.
8) It can open up many possibilities like online teachings, video conferencing
etc.
9) It can be used at all levels of education, from primary schools to
professional courses.
10) It can provide live lecture session from the best and expert teachers.
11) It can facilitate provision of equality in educational opportunity. Before
establishing the EDUSAT quality classes and classes handled by experts
benefited only urban students. But with the working of the EDUSAT ruler
students also can enjoy it’s benefit.
12) EDUSAT has enhanced distance education in the country, especially in
medical, technical and higher education streams. The project will be run by
the ISRO and IGNOU, the former providing the technical infrastructure and
the latter developing courses and training teachers.
13) Students will get the facility to see what they read in there textbooks and
to do experiments with the help of multimedia technologies.
ADVANTAGES OF EDUSAT

Following are the advantages of EduSAT -

➨It is used for mobile and wireless communication applications
independent of location.
➨It covers wide area of the earth hence entire country or region can be
covered with just one satellite.
➨It provides wider bandwidth based on SCPC or MCPC allocation types.
➨It co-exists with terrestrial microwave line of sight communication.
➨It is easy to install and manage the ground station sites.
➨It does not incur much of the costs per VSAT site.
➨It is used for voice, data, video and any other information transmission.
Satellite system can be interfaced with internet infrastructure to obtain
internet service. It is also used for GPS applications in various mobile
devices for location determination.
➨It is easy to obtain service from one single provider and uniform service
is available.
➨It has small fading margin on the order of about 3dB.
➨It is used in wide variety of applications which include weather
forecasting, radio/TV signal broadcasting, gathering intelligence in
military, navigation of ships and aircrafts, global mobile communication,
connecting remote areas etc.
➨LEO and MEO satellite types have lower propagation delay and lower
losses compare to GEO satellite. This will help them to be used for global
coverage.
Disadvantages of EduSAT
Following are the disadvantages of EduSAT -
➨Satellite manufacturing requires more time. Moreover satellite design
and development requires higher cost.

➨Satellite once launched, requires to be monitored and controlled on

regular periods so that it remains in the orbit.
➨Satellite has life which is about 12-15 years. Due to this fact, another
launch has to be planned before it becomes un-operational.
➨Redundant components are used in the network design. This incur more
cost in the installation phase.
➨In the case of LEO/MEO, large number of satellites are needed to cover
radius of earth. Moreover satellite visibility from earth is for very short
duration which requires fast satellite to satellite handover. This makes
system very complex.
Also refer advantages and disadvantages of LEO >>, MEO >> and GEO
>> satellite orbits.
SCOPE OF EDUSAT :-
The universalisation of education has become the top priority ,
especially for the developing countries . But the extension of quality
education to remote and regular regions become a Himalaya task for a
large country like India with multi –lingual and multi cultural population
separated by vast geographical distances and in many instances ,
inaccessible terrain .

Since independence , India has been substantial increase in the

number of educational institutions at primary , secondary and higher levels
as well as the student enrolment. But the lack of adequate rural education
infrastructure and non-availability of good teachers in sufficient numbers
adversely affect the efforts made in education . EduSAT is the first Indian
Satellite built exclusively for serving successfully by GSLV-F01 on 20-09-
2004.

It is mainly intended to meet the demand for an interactive satellite

leased distance education system for the country . It strongly reflects
India’s commitment to use space technology for nation development ,
especially for the development of the population in remote and rural
locations . EVOLUTION OF EDUSAT the concept of beaming educational
programmes through satellites was effectively demonstrated for the first
time in India in 1975-76 through the satellite Instructional Television
Experiment (SITE) conducted using the American Application Technology
Satellite (ATS-6)

During this unique experiment , which is hailed as the largest

sociological experiment conducted any where in the world , programmes
pertaining to health , hygiene and family planning were telecast directly to
about 2400 Indian villages spread over six states . Later , with the
commissioning of INSAT System in 1983 , a variety to educational
programmes are being telecast with the success of the INSAT based
educational services , a need was felt to launch a satellite dedicted for
educational service and ISRO Conceived the EDUSAT Project in October
2002 .
CONCLUSION
The launch of EDUSAT has helped in providing quality instruction through
video programmes to students studying in the interior villages . The
student have benefited from the video programmes delivered through the
satellite . The benefited gained is in terms of gain in knowledge &
understanding of the content , Improvement in attendance & holding
attention & interest in viewing programmes .

REFERENCES

1. EduSAT – Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org,wiki>Edus ………
2. Scope of Edusat
https://phdessay.com>Papers
3. Advantages and disadvantages of Satellite Communication
www.rfwireless-world.com>Terminology