Mumbai: A group of 30-40 students from the elite Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay (IIT-B) has designed a satellite that could be the first of its kind in the country to be launched into orbit.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has shown "its willingness" to launch the 10 kg satellite into low Earth orbit (low orbit is 800 km-1000 km above the Earth's surface), IIT-B sources confirmed.

With ISRO supporting the project, the mood at the institute is upbeat. When approached in Bangalore, ISRO officials said they support student satellite projects as it encourages young blood to be a part of the space programme.

"We are already evaluating a micro-satellite project prepared by students of the Anna University in Chennai. Both satellites would be launched with ISRO's highly proven PSLV," an ISRO official said.

IIT-B students are expecting their satellite to be ready by the end of next year.

Head of IIT Bombay's Aerospace Engineering Department, K Sudhakar said, "Students are eager on taking up issues that affect the nation rather than broad global matters. This will not be another ISRO satellite with a very broad scope. This is going to look at more locally relevant issues."

Sudhakar said this was the first time the institute was working on a satellite project, which, according to him, was being "carried forward by the tremendous enthusiasm of students from all departments.

"It is an ambitious project considering that this is the golden jubilee year of IIT-Bombay and I am extremely optimistic that our students will succeed", he added.

The IIT-B micro satellite will function in the following areas:

• Studying high-energy particles in space
• Studying the Greenhouse Effect
• Studying the Ionosphere
• Measuring transmission / polarization of atmosphere
• Biomedical Experimentation
• Ham Repeater for receiving weak signals and retransmitting as stronger signals.

Students from the aerospace, electrical, mechanical, computer science & engineering and physics departments are working on the satellite.

Saptarshi Banerjee, an IIT-B student, said that they were preparing a prototype version, which they hoped to deliver to ISRO in May 2008 for evaluation. After this, work on the actual flight model would start.