Originally published November 29 2005
Student-built spacecraft launches
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The student-built SSETI Express spacecraft successfully rode the Russian Kosmos 3M rocket into space. The satellite was built by more than 400 university students, and is the first of three planned spacecrafts.
A student-built spacecraft rocketed into space alongside several other microsatellites early Thursday, riding a Russian booster skyward in a space staged from Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
The boxy SSETI Express satellite, built by more than 400 university students for the European Space Agency (ESA), launched into space atop a 10-story Kosmos 3M rocket at 2:52 a.m.
According to Russia's Interfax News Agency, the spacecraft and seven other microsatellites reached their intended orbit shortly afterward.
"This image that we have of the launcher on the pad, this is the image they had," said Philippe Willekens, education projects administrator for the ESA, of SSETI Express' student builders before the successful launch.
Student Space Exploration Technology Initiative (SSETI) program, which is at encouraging student interest in space and engineering, while offering practical experience.
Built from donated and student-built components, the 136-pound (62-kilogram) SSETI Express satellite is about the size of a small washing machine and is expected to photograph the earth and serve as a radio transponder for amateur radio operators.
Riding into orbit with SSETI Express were Russia's Mozhayets-5 satellite, as well as the Britain's TopSat, Iran's Sina-1, Norway's Ncube-2, Germany's UWE-1, Japan's XI-5 and China's DMC-4 -- which is also known as Beijing-1.
The spacecraft was expected to form part of the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and carries the China Mapping Telescope to image the nation's topography, according to officials with the optics firm Sira, which built the telescope for the Britain's Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL).
Plans are already underway for an Earth orbiter -- the European Space Earth Orbiter (ESE0) and a Moon orbiter, and interest seems to be growing among the program's target audience.
"Every year a dozen or so students of our university join the project," Marcin Jagoda, who graduated from Poland's Wroclaw University of Technology in July where his team built SSETI Express' communications system, told SPACE.com before launch.
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