SSETI Express Satellite

SSETI Express ( also OSCAR 53 ) is a 27 October 2005, prepared starting from the Russian spaceport Plesetsk micro- satellite, which was designed by over 200 students from 20 universities in 12 countries and built. SSETI called " Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative" ( Space Exploration and Technology Initiative for students). The SSETI Express weighed 60 kg and was the world's first " student satellite ".

From the Russian Plesetsk Cosmodrome it was started at 06:52 UTC and orbited the Earth in about 690 km altitude. After a successful start, he was assigned to the OSCAR number 53.

The satellite carried three picosatellites with them, which have a side length of 10 centimeters and about 1 kg mass. These three satellites were sold in orbit:

  • UWE -1 ( University of Würzburg, Experimental Satellite)
  • OSCAR 58 from Japan
  • NCube - 2 from Norway

After five days of flight, ESA lost on 1 November 2005 the contact with SSETI Express. The power failed in the satellite, and thus charging of the satellite was not possible. The error was caused apparently by a thermal overload in the charging control unit. The concatenation of several states played a role that was not tested in this form on earth: currently available information, the incident sunlight had the power enabled by the solar cells. However, since about 60 minutes after exposure to all payloads had to be switched off and the battery was fully charged, the resulting energy could be ' consumed ' by the charging electronics only as heat. A design error helped contribute to an insufficient allocation of heat load, and lastly to the failure of a critical component.

Nevertheless, the mission is viewed as an outstanding success. Until the complete discharge of the battery, the satellite worked fine. All three were exposed Pikosatelliten. The launch was accompanied by one of the biggest PR campaigns ESA. In addition, the period of time required between mission definition and ready to start at 18 months for projects of this magnitude is an impressive achievement, which underlines the high level of motivation, mobility and the use of scattered all over Europe participants. Due to the project's successful implementation of SSETI Express mission now available from the ESA further support for the SSETI sister missions ( ESEO, ESMO) has been granted.

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