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Students Design A Satellite Via Internet

Posted by timothy on from the a-piece-here-a-piece-there dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "A group of 250 students from many European universities has collectively designed a satellite by using a dedicated news server and weekly chats on Internet. By using the Web, the virtual team was able to move from design to construction in less than a year. The SSETI Express is currently under integration in one of the technology centers of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. Only a few selected members of the team will attend the launch which will be part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3 in May 2005. The SSETI Express will embark three mini 'cubesats' for specific experiments while the main satellite will test a propulsion system and act as a transponder for amateur radio users. I sure hope that this collaborative action will be successful. Read this summary for more details."

3 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Design to construction in less than a year... by goretexguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great. But will it work properly?

  2. Wow by Moby+Cock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is very impressive. The level of detail required on such a complex project is often daunting. To acheive a design with team members so far flung is nothing short of incredibe. I am not entirely sure what to make of it. It's a little like Linus' idea of "many eyeballs". Except in this case its not finding bugs its bulding satellites.

    Imagine an extention of this work being used to solve problems and develop workarounds for breakage on the ISS or (dare I say it....) Mars.

    This is really very cool.

  3. I like this... by apostrophesemicolon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it seems like more and more people are taking things into their own hands, bypassing the government agencies' bureaucratic process that goes for ages..

    we've seen the SpaceShipOne made it, and now a 'brute force' construction of a satellite.. this only leads to the question: what's next?? LEZ DO DIS!

    -A simple hydrogen-powered car model that's ready to be mass produced? (instead of stuck being a prototype)
    -better next-gen ASIMOs?
    -advanced propulsion technology?
    -human habitat for mars?

    sheez, when I thnk about how people can combine their power and time to bruteforce-building something.. almost nothing is impossible
    as for me, im still working on my warp machine :p