Polish student satellite

11 April 2006

Students of two Warsaw academic schools have prepared a joint space project.
Their unique purpose satellite will be put into orbit at the start of next
year.

Slawek Szefs reports

The PW-Sat has been designed and engineered by students of the capital's
Technical University, while the business aspect of the venture has been
supervised by their colleagues from the Warsaw School of Economics. The unit
is a small cube satellite slightly under one kilogram in weight. Michal
Krowinski, one of the project participants from the School of Economics is
convinced the satellite, despite its minute size, will have sufficient place
for some very sophisticated scientific equipment. Data supplied by it will
find much desired practical application.

' The experiment it is to conduct will enable future low cost commercial
de-orbiting of satellite debris in space. There are presently countless
remains of satellites and their rockets circling our globe. We want to test
this possibility with the application of a balloon, which would bring them
closer to Earth and naturally burn this space debris in the atmosphere.'

Professor Piotr Wolanski of Warsaw Technical University, the scientific
supervisor of the PW-Sat project says it's a rare opportunity to test one's
knowledge in practice and open doors to future career opportunities for the
students involved.

' They will learn practically what they are learning theoretically in
classes. This is the best student exercise, when they build something and
then test how it works. And if it works properly, then the results will be
highly evaluated by potential employers, who will acquire well prepared
alumni from our universities.'

The project has already been tested many times and its engineering staff
co-ordinator Rafal Przybyla is hoping for at least several weeks of
effective operation of the cube satellite in space.

' We want it to orbit without the balloon for the initial two weeks to
monitor the unit on its own. Then we'll inflate the baloon and check the
hardware. If everything functions properly after the following two weeks, we
will continue the mission. However, the minimum period of target operations
is a full month.'

Professor Wolanski is proud that his students have succeeded in something
their experienced and merited professional partners from the Space Research
Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences have not been able to achieve.

' Actually, this is an entirely Polish project. Though Polish scientists
have sent more than sixty instruments into space, this will be the first
satellite completely built in Poland.'

Now, the only problem that the Warsaw Technical University and Economics
School students have to face is making a choice of a launch rocket. There
was talk of an American Falcon, but after a recent failure they might be
considering the alternative of a Russian launching site and rocket carrier.

http://www.polskieradio.pl/polonia/a...?tId=35298&j=2