Hyderabad school students make history with CubeSat on ISRO’s PSLV-C62

Seventeen school students from Hyderabad have built a CubeSat that will be launched aboard ISRO’s PSLV-C62 on January 12. The satellite, developed entirely by middle-schoolers, marks a rare milestone in Indian STEM education

Hyderabad: When ISRO’s PSLV-C62 lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on January 12 at 10.17 am, it will carry aboard a CubeSat payload built entirely by 17 school students from Hyderabad — a first of its kind in the country.

The compact satellite, assembled, engineered and coded by middle-school students of Blue Blocks Montessori School, Hyderabad, marks a milestone in Indian STEM education.

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While CubeSats are typically designed by universities and startups, a flight-ready satellite built solely by school students and integrated into an ISRO mission is a rare achievement.

The CubeSat has received official authorisation from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe). The students have been working on the project for the past five months and two students — Sanjay and Sanshray — will be present at ISRO’s mission control on launch day. The student team also includes Sreshta, Umme Hani, Saachi, Ashrit, Ashrit Reddy, Manish, Ranveer, Kartieya, Varun, Viaan, Dhruti, Amaira, Vedika and Pratista.

Speaking to presspersons on Thursday, the students said the CubeSat is expected to remain operational in orbit for six to eight months. Positioned at an altitude of about 450 km, it will transmit raw data related to temperature, humidity and other weather parameters. Throughout the project, the students worked closely with scientists from Take Me 2 Space, a private company engaged in building operational satellites.

The CubeSat was developed from first principles, using real sensors, real firmware and real operational constraints. The project followed structural autonomy, an innovative pedagogical approach developed by the Blue Blocks Micro Research Institute.

The initiative was conceptualised by Pavan Goyal and Muneera Husain, co-founders of Blue Blocks Montessori School, located in Gachibowli. The school launched a dedicated space programme in August 2023, coinciding with India’s successful Chandrayaan moon landing.