Pranjal Gupta

I am Pranjal Gupta, presently working at the Indian Institute of Space Science & Technology (IIST) as a Junior Research Fellow for MOM-2 (Mars Orbiter Mission-2) payload ARIS (Advanced Retarding potential analyser for martian/venusian Ionospheric studies) under Dr. Umesh R.Kadhane, Associate Prof. & Head, Dept. of Physics, IIST. Though my background is essentially Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical, in my tenure of the last two years and ten months here, I have had two major responsibilities:

1. Design and development of the RPA payload ARIS, the proposed payload for Mars and Venus Missions, its testing, qualification for launch and data analysis.

2. The plasma diagnostics for the electric propulsion as well as for space based ionospheric plasma measurement for neighboring planets.

In both cases my role was to perform ion-optics simulations, design, fabrication and testing of plasma characterizations in probes. I was also given the responsibility of design & development of a large high vacuum plasma test facility (1mX1.5m) operated with two large turbo molecular pumps and test the flight qualified payload under lower earth orbit plasma conditions. The same payload was flown on PSLV C-45 mission launched by ISRO on 1st April 2019 and worked excellently in Earth orbit.

Professional Experience:
1. Worked as Graduate Apprentice at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Bhopal in year
2014.
2. Worked as a Guest Faculty at Government Engineering College, Jabalpur (M.P) in year 2015.
3. Selected as Project Assistant (Level-II) at Council of Scientific & Industrial Research–Central
Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CSIR-CIMFR), Dhanbad, Jharkhand in year 2017.
4. Selected as a Junior Project Fellow (JPF) for the project Development of an FDM based
single/multijet open source desktop type polymer based rapid prototyping system and
allied research at IIST in year 2017.
5. Presently working as a Junior Project Fellow (JPF) on payload for MOM-2 under the project
“Advanced Retarding potential analyzer for martian Ionospheric Sudies (ARIS)” at IIST from
November 2017.

I have used various FEA packages for structural and thermal analysis such as Solid Works, CATIA V5, ANSYS, Inventor, HyperMesh, Patran, Nastran and NX. I am also a key user of 3D printing facility for design and development of any part modeling for all the research activity involved. I developed an understanding of plasma physics including detector simulation, development of detector electronics, pulse processing, data acquisition and analysis. I also have a basic knowledge of Orbital Mechanics and Space Mission Design and Analysis.