* Astronomy

An failure occurred during the first stage burn. The Rocket has not reached orbit.

Launch Video (5.75mb)

The Baumanets satellite is intended for technical and educational experiments for students to gain experience of craft operation and manufacture.
The Baumanets micro satellite project is a fully scientific initiative, developed by students and space industry specialists under the aegis of the Federal Space Agency.
This educational program is aimed at increasing interest in scientific research, extending knowledge and providing experience not only to Bauman University students, but to other students as well, both Russian and foreign.

Unisat (University Satellite) are a series of small (~12 kg) satellites developed at the Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale by the Gruppo di Astrodinamica dell’Università degli Studi “La Sapienza University of Rome” (GAUSS) to perform technology experiments and to check the use of non-space equipment in space.
The UNISAT program has been the first university program in Italy intended to promote the use of commercial technologies in the aerospace field, and perform in-orbit tests of up-to-date technologies, with short development times and with a remarkable cost reduction.
The main objective of the micro satellites, designed and realized by GAUSS, is space education: tens of students are involved in the UNISAT program while attending to their theses.
Unisat 4 will be the fourth satellite launched under the UNISAT program.

PICPOT (PIccolo Cubo del POlitecnico di Torino) is a nano satellite built by the Turin Polytechnic University for educational and scientific applications.
Major objectives:
- give opportunities to students to gain experience in satellite design, manufacturing and operation
- image the North hemisphere
- test silicon solar cells traditionally used on the Earth
- test lithium polymer batteries in space
- test brushless DC engine
- verify communications channels

The Poly Picosat Orbital Deployer, or P-PODs, is a standard deployment system, which will help in the effort to reduce the satellite development time for the CubeSat program.
P-PODs are metal Cubesat containers designed and developed by California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly, USA). Cal Poly students built three P-PODs and nine nano-satellites to be installed in them for the Dnepr launch in June 2006.

Source Russian federal Space

Two tiny satellites, Rincon and Sacred, built by a team of University of Arizona students are scheduled to blast off from an Asian launch pad today and go into orbit some 300 miles above the earth.
It's been a long time in coming since the project began in fall 2000, and many of the nearly 50 students who worked on the satellites have earned degrees and moved into the workforce.
Fortunately, new students have joined the project and completed it.
The University of Arizona satellites plus a dozen from other universities are to ride into space aboard a Russian Dnepr rocket, a converted ballistic missile launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan at 12:43 p.m.

"The Russians are the cheapest launch providers in the world. They will launch a payload for roughly $10,000 per satellite" - Uwe Fink, professor emeritus of University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and primary investigator of the CubeSats project.

The tracking of the satellites, Rincon and Sacred, each 4-inch cubes weighing about 2.2 pounds, will take place at University of Arizona's Kuiper Space Science building as soon as signals show up in Tucson. Each CubeSat carries an array of sophisticated microelectronics.
Rincon, named in honour of Tucson's Rincon Research Corp., that provided seed money for CubeSat, is mainly an engineering satellite, Fink said.
Sacred consists of several experiments related to radiation and its effects on certain instruments.

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-- Edited by Blobrana at 20:25, 2006-07-26