Karimanagar, June 14: Young Harish Rao has done Karimnagar proud. He was part of the team which made 1-kg mini satellite, Pico, which will be put in orbit on July 28.
The team with students drawn from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka was guided by the Indian Space Research Organisation, Bengaluru in their mission.
Harish Rao, a Karimnagar lad, is currently studying Mechanical engineering third year at the KITS, Ramtek in Nagpur. He briefed about the satellite to the students of Vindhya Valley High School at a programme in Karimnagar today.
He said the satellite was handed over to ISRO through Karnataka Governor Hansiraj Bharadwaj on April 17 this year. It will be launched into 700-km orbit through PSLV-C15 on July 28.
He got to attend the International Astronomy Conference (IAC) in Hyderabad in 2007 when he was studying his B.Tech first year and was inspired by a talk on the subject.
Since then his ambition was to do something constructive in space research and was guided by small satellite project director DV Raghava Murthy of Bengaluru.
His role is to ensure that the satellite after reaching the orbit clicks pictures on the earth.
It was made at a cost of Rs 55 lakh with the support of 7 institutions in Andhra Pradesh and Bengaluru.
After completing his B.Tech, Harish Rao wants to settle in some space-related research institution and do something proud for the nation.
He and his team were awarded Hansvon Muldau by the Scotland International Astronomy Vehicle conference in 2008 for presenting paper on the project. His team is also going to take part in a astronomy conference to be held in Czech Republic in September this year.
Vindhya Valley correspondent and his mother Laxmi Prakash Rao and Principal Jayes Anand congratulated Harish for his achievement and efforts to realise his ambition.
–Agencies