bengaluru you dont have to be a space scientist to launch a satellite all you have to do is stock up some empty beverage cans and turn them into mini satellitesthats exactly what a city based computer engineer has been doing for the past two years he has converted coke red bull and beer cans into minisatellites to create an opensource database on several city parameters including temperature and pollution levels suraj kumar jana 22 founder of opencube labs is the mastermind behind the project monikered as cansat development programme cansat is a sounding rocket balloon payload built of open hardware arduino raspberrypi with the entire satellite components assembled inside a 350ml soda canthe minisatellite which is launched from the air force base at yelahanka does a controlled descent with the help of a parachute and transmits captured data to the ground station the data collected by these minisatellites include temperature and pollution levels quality of air and water ultraviolet penetration and traffic congestion levels in the city these data can help in research purposes and our civic bodies can even use them to implement better policies said suraj who is a computer engineer from bms institute of technologythe cansat project was aunched in 2014 to provide students an experience of smallscale space missions through several workshops conducted across the citysuraj said receiving a realtime experience of smallscale space missions isnt that reasonable and goes beyond affordability of indian middleclass students through our workshops we provide students a firsthand knowledge on making operating and launching of satellites