AN EARTH ORBITER, BUILT BY STUDENTS

Developed in just 18 months; launched in September (Netherlands) An earth orbiter designed and built by students is launched on top of a Russian rocket and will orbit from a distance of 686km. The orbiter designed by the students space exploration and technology initiative programme will be launched from the plesetsk cosmodrome in Russia. From its conception in Jan 2004 to its recent flight-readiness review, the SSETI express took only 18 months to be developed. In April 2005, the 62kg spacecraft was certified space-worthy after a series of tests, including being mounted on a shaker table and subjected to violent vibrations simulating launch conditions. Scores of students from universities across Europe cooperated on the orbiters design, communicating via the internet mainly but also meeting several times at ESTEC facilities in noordwijk, European space agency’s main research lab in Netherlands. Marie de cock, coordinator of SSETI, says: “there was almost a clash of cultures. In the beginning, the Germans and Italians nearly drove each other crazy.” But they never lost the sight of their common goal, they said. “When ESA first tabled the idea of a students space initiative, everybody was keen to target the moon” says de cock. But quickly they realized such a project would be too complex for the first mission. they then initiated ‘EXPRESS’ as a project .they were confident of completing ,with shelving more ambitious projects in the future. The students are still working on a larger European student earth orbiter planned for 2006 and a European student moon orbiter planned for 2012.