A space satellite built by 250 European university students who have never met is being assembled in the Netherlands under their watchful Internet eyes. Collaboration among the network of students, universities and experts involved in the Student Space Education and Technology Initiative, or SSETI, was carried out via the Internet. “SSETI Express” is being integrated in a European Space Agency clean room for a planned launch in next May, and progress can be watched by webcam. Like a Russian doll, SSETI Express will carry inside it three smaller “cubesats” — 5-inch cube technology testers built respectively by universities in Germany, Japan and Norway — for deployment when in orbit. The main SSETI Express satellite itself will test and characterize a propulsion system, return images of the Earth and serve as a transponder for amateur radio users. SSETI Express measures just 24 by 24 by 28 inches across, small enough to piggyback its way to orbit on next year’s commercial Cosmos DMC-3 launch from Plesetsk in Russia. “We’ve come from design to integration in a year, which is a very rapid schedule for a spacecraft,” said Neil Melville, SSETI Express project manager. © Copyright 2004 by United Press International

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