Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad

Capacity building in the field of small satellite technology while providing opportunity to Pakistani students of carrying out space experiments through SUPARCO and international collaboration.

Domain 1 – Capacity Building in the Field of Small Satellite Technology

In recent years, the development of pico/nano satellites has changed the satellite industry in a very drastic way. The conventional big satellites whose development is usually associated with the big space agencies and commercial companies are also now moving towards the development of very small to medium size satellites. Most of the missions are now planned and designed as a cluster of pico/nano/micro satellites. The advent of CubeSat standard enables the classroom satellite concept and now the students can plan, design and launch a complete CubeSat during their course of study. SSTR will focus on the development of CubeSat training equipment (CTE) which will be provided free-of-cost to various universities of Pakistan. The students will be trained using that equipment for the capacity building in the field of small satellite technology.

Domain 2 – Joint Mission to Plan, Design and Develop A 3U Cubesat

SSTR lab will plan, design and develop a 3U CubeSat in collaboration with various universities of Pakistan. The undergraduate/postgraduate students will not only be involved during all the stages of the mission planning and design but also during the testing and commissioning phase. The overall mission will be defined as a collective effort among the students and a contest will be organized to shortlist novel mission ideas.

Domain 3 – Remote Access of IST Ground Station

A satellite ground station was developed by IST in order to communicate with the amateur class satellite. The ground station can communicate in the VHF/UHF/S-band. The SSTR Lab will develop and enable the remote access of this ground station so that students all over the Pakistan can have access to this ground station. It will help them to download free-of-cost data available from various pico/nano satellites for the purpose of experimentation.

Apart from the above-mentioned application domains, there are several areas on SSTR lab will work in future and in-collaboration with various affiliated labs of this center. However, this is only possible after the enhancement of the lab not only in-terms of the available equipment but also in-terms of further human resource.