In a rare distinction, an Indian has been selected to work for the European Space Agency's student orbiter mission, which is tasked with designing the overall power supply technology for a moon orbiting satellite.
Karan Goyal, a student from Delhi is the only Indian among the team at Warwick University, which is working on the design to be launched in 2011.
Goyal, currently a final year student of MSc computer system engineering, said on Saturday night, "I am keen to return home and work in the IT field either in production or quality line. I will definitely go to Europe later if I get a chance to work on a space project."
Goyal's family is in computer business in Delhi.
A spokesman of the university said on Sunday that apart from working on designing the overall power supply technology to all the devices in the Moon Orbiting Satellite, 'the team is engaged in a very specific supply requirement by Astronautics Research Group.'
"The group has devised an electrical propulsion thruster that can be used by satellites instead of the conventional chemical rockets."
The spokesman said, "This is an out of the world experience for Goyal and other members of the team. This is indeed another example of the exciting opportunities open to engineering students. We now have engineering student teams building satellites, racing cars and robot footballers. These young people will build the technology and devices that will shape our future."
Peter Dunn of the Warwick University said the European Student Moon Orbiter Satellite project is part of European Space Agency's Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative, which will culminate in a student-built satellite to be launched via either a Soyuz or Ariane rocket.
It would join many other contemporary missions to the Moon such as Indian Chandrayana, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, ESA's SMART-1 and the Chinese Chang'e-1.
"The European Student Moon Orbiter Satellite spacecraft will be launched as an auxiliary payload into a highly elliptical, low inclination Geo-stationary Transfer Orbit on the new Arianespace Support for Auxiliary Payloads by either Ariane 5 or Soyuz from Kourou," the spokesman said.
A 10-kg miniaturised suite of scientific instruments provided by the student team would perform measurements during the lunar transfer and lunar orbit phases over the period of a few months.
The core payload will be a high-resolution narrow angle CCD camera for optical imaging of lunar surface characteristics. Optional payload items being considered include a LIDAR, an IR hyper-spectral imager, a mini sub-surface sounding radar for polar ice detection, and a Cube-sat sub-satellite for precision gravity field mapping via accurate ranging of the sub-satellite from the main spacecraft.
