Space coursework

The first student satellite will go into orbit today

Tonight, the Dnepr launch vehicle will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which should launch into orbit, to an altitude of about 500 kilometers, a cube 70 by 70 centimeters and weighing 85.5 kilograms. This is the first domestic spacecraft, created by “non-professionals” - students and graduate students of the Moscow Higher Technical University named after. Bauman.

The project, which began back in 1997, could have remained a kind of course or laboratory work if, for the 175th anniversary of this famous educational institution, the Russian authorities had not made a luxurious gift - the state financed the creation of a real, and not a “virtual” satellite of the general worth about $5 million. “Hundreds and thousands of aircraft have been created by the hands of our graduates,” says MSTU Rector Igor Fedorov. “But for the first time in the history of our university, a student design bureau worked on this unique satellite.” According to Mr. Fedorov, soon after the launch the student Flight Control Center will also be operational - right on the territory of the technical university, the premises have already been allocated for it. The satellite was created jointly with the Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Mashinostroeniya. However, as one of the project participants, MSTU graduate student Yuri Zakharchenko told a Vremya Novostei correspondent, “the participation of students was decisive.” “The concept and project were created by the students, they were responsible for the payload and, to one degree or another, participated in all stages of development,” he said.

At the same time, despite the fact that the creation of Baumanets was a serious but educational work, the satellite itself is quite suitable for solving problems not related to the educational process. “The equipment installed on our Baumanets can be used to solve real problems. For example, a new mobile communication channel with the device via the Globalstar modem will be tested. This connection is not tied to the control center, simply through a laptop,” explained the head of the Youth Space Center of Moscow State Technical University to a Vremya Novostey correspondent. Bauman Victoria Mayorova. -- The passage of millimeter waves will also be studied. If it is proven that the wave attenuation coefficient is not so large, it will be possible to dump large amounts of information, for ultra-high-speed communication.” In addition, it is planned to photograph the earth's surface with a remote sensing camera from the satellite and even broadcast information about the university to Earth. In total, as planned, it will spend at least one and a half years in orbit.

Many students graduated from university or entered graduate school while working on the satellite. “Our main goal was to gain experience in designing such systems,” said university graduate student Vasily Muravyov, who, after defending his dissertation, intends to work in his specialty - “launch vehicles and spacecraft.” Mr. Muravyov will spend the launch day in Kaluga: there, at the Research Laboratory of Aerospace Engineering ROSTO, an hour and a half after the launch, they will wait for the first signal from Baumanets.

Other design students went to Baikonur yesterday to launch their microsatellite, and for many of them this was their first trip to the cosmodrome. They took off from Domodedovo Airport, whose administration organized a ceremonial farewell for them and timed a photo exhibition “Youth Space Center of Moscow State Technical University named after. N.E. Bauman - a student's path to space technology." A photo exhibition at the airport, located next to the international departures hall, is by no means an accident. “We strive to ensure that the airport is more than just a place of arrival and departure,” said Eastline PR Director Anna Krasnova. - This is a place where people spend a lot of time, a place where cultures come into contact. And the aerospace industry is precisely that part of Russian culture that we can be proud of.”

Irina BELASHEVA