ISRO to support 8 joint research projects proposed by IIT-Delhi’s Space Technology Cell

New Delhi: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will support eight joint research projects mooted by the Space Technology Cell (STC) of IIT Delhi. ISRO will support the projects under its RESPOND program with varying duration of 1-3 years.

The Space Technology Cell was set up at IIT Delhi under an MoU signed between ISRO and IIT Delhi in November 2019 with an aim to strengthen the research collaboration between the two organisations and to carry out focused research projects in the space technology domain with specific deliverables. The eight collaborative research projects on which the scientists from different ISRO centres and IIT Delhi will work jointly include:

1. Establishing a Coupled Indian Land Data Assimilation System (ILDAS) for identifying hydrologic extremes – This system will have widespread water resource applications, including drought and flood forecasting and understanding land-atmosphere interactions.
2. Classical Trajectory Monte Carlo Simulations of the Plasma dynamics in electrode-less plasma thruster – The project aims to understand the plasma dynamics in electrode-less thrusters, which are used for electric propulsion and have a longer lifespan than their electrode-based counterparts. Electric propulsion schemes exhibit high fuel efficiency and lower thrust than chemical propulsion schemes and are therefore preferred for deep space missions.
3. Analysis of Variable Stiffness Composite Honeycomb Sandwich Structures with Embedded Delamination – The project aims to develop an efficient finite element formulation to evaluate displacements and stresses in composite structures widely used in aerospace and space applications.
4. Indigenous Sensor-based Real-Time Flood Warning Smart System – This aims to provide real-time warning to the community, by assimilating information through sensor networks and corrected satellite products, thereby providing a faster, more reliable warning system that will ensure protection to the community infrastructure and lives.
5. Impact of Satellite Observations in a Coupled System for Predicting Storm Tides and its Coastal Inundation – The project aims at real-time prediction of the vulnerability of the Indian coasts to tropical cyclones through satellite observations well in advance to minimize damages wreaked by a cyclone.
6. Development of a Numerical Simulator for Micro-fabricated Electrospray Thrusters – Develop advanced computational tools to simulate miniaturized electrospray thrusters to speed up the design of such thrusters for small spacecrafts. This addresses the need for a miniaturized propulsion system for manoeuvring and orbit control of the micro and nanosatellites at a low cost.
7. Designing Speciality Glasses Employing Machine Learning and Meta-Heuristic Optimization – Speciality glasses are ubiquitously used in space applications such as telescopic lenses and window shields in space vehicles. The aim of the project is to develop new glasses with improved thermal and mechanical performance, which can withstand conditions of extreme cold or hot weather in outer space.
8. Low-Pressure Systems (LPSs) and their nonlinear interaction with other scales in the atmosphere through the lens of scale energetics.

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While welcoming the joint research activities between ISRO and IIT Delhi under the Space Technology Cell, IIT-Delhi's Director Prof V Ramgopal Rao said, "IIT Delhi is committed to taking its interactions with ISRO to the next level. The Institute has some of the world's experts in various technology domains such as land surface modelling, remote sensing, molecular dynamics simulations etc. who will extend their expertise to ISRO and play a key role in making its future endeavours successful. IIT Delhi has also entered into similar agreements with other strategic agencies in the country."

On the ISRO side, the projects will be coordinated by the agency's scientists at the Space Applications Centre (SAC), the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), the Semi-conductor Laboratory (SCL) and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC).

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