Brief info about the project, the team & the idea behind NMIMS in Space
NMIMS in Space is a research project started by an interdisciplinary team of students & alumni from NMIMS MPSTME. Most of us are aspiring researchers who are looking forward to creating our own mark in the research & academia world & are humbled to have accepted this opportunity by Satellize & ISRO.
Our experiment consists of a space-grade PCB that contains samples of Magnetic Shape Memory Alloys or MSMAs/FSMAs (Ferro). These alloys are attached to load cells in order to study the effects of Earth’s latent magnetic field on them; as well as to study the effects of temperature on the material. If our test-bed is successful, it would show that MSMAs can be used in space-grade components in the form of sensors, actuators as well as structural components.
The versatility of MSMAs/FSMAs makes them unique for our use-case. General-purpose Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) are already used in multiple space applications; proving their worthiness & efficiency over classical sensors & actuators time & time again. Proposed MSMAs allow a new breed of space equipment — imagine a chassis that can change its shape, act as a sensor & does not require any real actuator for movement.
With our research, we wish to bring new materials, soft robotics & underactuated robotics and all their benefits in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness & versatility to the New Space revolution in India & to ISRO. Further down the line, we also wish to research upcoming soft-robotics applications & attempt to retrofit the same in space-based applications. Based on the results we provide, we also expect future space missions to have improved efficiency, longer fatigue life, and lower costs on switching to MSMAs instead of traditional sensors (like magnetometers) or actuators (like a BLDC) or structural components (like cable nets used for deployment in Cubesats).
Due to the fact that Satellize & ISRO are providing access to the SpaceShare program to universities for no cost, the entire project costs us about 42 times less than that compared to a standard 3U Cubesat launch. While we’re putting #NMIMSinSpace, let us also ensure that we create a program & community that will spawn further research into soft robotics, MSMAs & space-tech in general, in the future.
Thanks for reading our first update! If you have any questions that need to be addressed, please drop us a message at nmimsinspace@gmail.com. If you want to volunteer for us, check out our Instagram page: https://instagram.com/nmimsinspace & if you’re willing to donate or sponsor us, please check out the relevant pages for more information: https://nmimsinspace.com/sponsors.
