3 Bangladeshi youths make nano-satellite

Staff Correspondent: Three students of Brac University have made nano-satellit Onnesha, the first satellite developed by any Bangladeshi university which will be launched into low earth orbit by March.

Professor Syed Saad Andaleeb, vice chancellor of Brac University, received the satellite from a programme held at Kitakyushu Institute of Technology (KIT) in Japan on Wednesday.

The programme was broadcast through video conferencing at the Mohakhali campus of the university at 11:00am (local time) from Japan’s Kitakyushu.

Onnesha – a 10 centimetre-edged cube-shaped satellite – designed, developed and assembled by three Brac students in Japan’s Kyutech.

Syed Saad Andaleeb said, “It is a start of a major journey although it may be a tiny step. That Bangladesh can invent is proved through the making of this nano-satellite.”

It is capable of completing one orbit 400 kilometres above the ground in 90 minutes and passing over Bangladesh four to six times every day, said Md Khalilur Rahman, chief of the project.

It will allow high quality photographs of land to analyse vegetation, urbanisation, flood, water resources, forestry and other natural resources from overhead, he added.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Chairman Dr Shahjahan Mahmood and Japan embassy’s First Secretary Toshiyuki Noguchi were, among others, present in the programme.

risingbd/DHAKA/Feb 8, 2017/Hasibul/Amirul