Inexpensive Satellite Does the Job

Related link: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020123/tc/cheap_satellite_1.html

Pretty damn neat, maybe soon we can all have our own satellites...

Also visit the website: www.ew.usna.edu/pcsat

Inexpensive Satellite Does the Job

By TOM STUCKEY, Associated Press Writer

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Once every 100 minutes, a bargain basement satellite loops around the earth, sending and receiving digital messages over antennae made from a metal tape measure.

After four months in space, the U.S. Naval Academy's ``bird'' is proving surprisingly resilient, to the delight of the midshipmen and faculty advisers who designed and built it.

The so-called Prototype Communications Satellite (PCSat) was the 44th amateur satellite put in orbit. It is one of more than a dozen built by university students around the world.

At a cost of just $50,000 - including plane tickets to the Alaska launch site - it was constructed using off-the-shelf parts not designed to withstand the rigors of space.