NASA to launch student built two-way communication satellite
After putting their blood, toil, tears and sweat into building one, this is great news for the undergraduates at the CU-Boulder, Montana State University and Kentucky Space. None other than NASA has decided to launch three tiny communication satellites engineered by the students as part of its Educational Launch of Nano-satellite, or ELaNA, mission. Dubbed as "CubeSats", the satellites are roughly four inches on a side, and have a volume of about one quart and weigh about 2.2 pounds.
“The mission of the CU-Boulder satellite, named Hermes is to improve communications systems in tiny satellites through on-orbit testing of a high data-rate communication system that will allow scientists and engineers to downlink large quantities of information.” The success of the homegrown satellite would mean replication of the same on the other satellites. The three CubeSat satellites would be attached to the Taurus XL rocket set for launch in November this year.
Via: Technobahn
